The Israel-Gaza war erupted after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, with its fighters entering communities near the Gaza Strip, killing at least 1,300 people, and taking over 150 hostages which also include 20 Americans and 50 Israeli army soldiers. The Israeli government pointed out that Hamas is still holding at least 200 hostages kidnapped from Israel.
Israeli officials said that it was the most devastating and brutal assault Israel had suffered in decades; and described it as their country’s 9/11.
In response, Tel Aviv officially declared war against Hamas on October 8, and launched one of its largest aerial bombardments ever on the Gaza strip. After barrages of artillery and rocket fire, ground operations to target Hamas fighters are likely to follow. So far the Israeli military has dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza.
Unmatched with Israeli heavy and modern weapons, freedom fighters of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group Abu Ubaida had no option except firing rockets inside Israel.
However, unlike the less numbers of the persons mentioned by the media, Israel’s aerial raids in Gaza strip have destroyed buildings, houses, refugees’ camps, mosques, schools, hospitals, and other buildings, killing tens thousands of civilians, including women (including pregnant women), children and journalists.
Authorities in Gaza pointed out that thousands of people were missing and believed to be under the rubble. On the other hand, only 1400 Israelis have been killed so far.
Israeli forces also targeted multiple locations in the Occupied West Bank and murdered 70 Palestinians, while arresting more than 800 individuals.
In the last 12 days, Tel Aviv has halted deliveries of basic necessities of life such as water, food and electricity to Gaza’s 2.3 million people and prevented entry of supplies from Egypt.
Besides, a number of developments and moves such as Israel’s order to Gazans in the north to head south to avoid an expected ground war, its bombardment of the Palestinians during evacuation, despite the calls of its western allies as well as of Pope Francis to open humanitarian corridors so that basic necessities of life and medicine could reach the starving people of the besieged Gaza enclave, Tel Aviv’s refusal to implement those corridors, intense clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, US, UK, France— Germany, including some western countries’ leaders, stating that Iran is supporting Hamas and Hezbollah with weapons—was behind the October 7 offensive, rejection of the Russian resolution by America and some of its major European allies in the UN Security Council— the resolution condemned violence and terrorism against civilians, failure of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to some Arab countries, particularly Egypt and Israel (twice) to prevent war through a ceasefire— after first meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Blinken’s encouragement to Israeli brutal acts in Gaza, ensuring US massive military support for Tel Aviv, equating Hamas with Islamic State (ISIS), the deployment of a second aircraft carrier group into the Eastern Mediterranean, the US-Israeli the rejection of two-state solution of the Palestinian-Israeli issue as proposed by Russia and China, the waning of Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian of ‘pre-emptive action’, stating that the USA and Israel would suffer significant damages if the war in Gaza spills over into a larger conflict— setting aside the Israeli state terrorism of the past and recent years on the occupied territories of the Palestinians, issuance of the statement of the EU leaders’ condemning in the strongest possible terms Hamas and its indiscriminate terrorist attacks across Israel deeply deploring the loss of lives, duplicity of the EU—EU’s initial response to announce the immediate suspension of development aid for Palestinians— later said to review the assistance, and also emphasized on Tel Aviv for immediate ceasefire to open the humanitarian corridors for supply of aid to the Gazans, public protests and demonstrations across the Islamic countries, and the western cities, including the US against the Israel’s heavy bombardments on Gaza on larger scale, Tel Aviv’s perennial state terrorism are notable.
Meanwhile, 900 people were killed in an Israeli air raid on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza on October 17, 2023. Several world leaders belonging to the western countries and those of the Muslim World, and the UN secretary general have strongly censured the hospital attack, holding Israel responsible for the tragedy in wake of the protest-rallies in the USA, Western countries and the Islamic countries— in some countries occurrence of clashes between police and protesters.
Taking note of the air raid on the hospital, the rulers of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority canceled a scheduled meeting with US President Joe Biden who arrived in the region on October 18. President Biden had to meet a range of Arab leaders. But, Jordan also cancelled that summit after an explosion at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.
Earlier, US President Biden met with Israeli Prime Benjamin Minister Netanyahu on the same day and he stated that Washington would provide Israel with everything it needed to defend itself against the Palestinian militant group Hamas— he allegedly said that Hamas was worse than the Islamic State group. Speaking in the tone of Tel Aviv, Biden remarked that the Gaza Hospital strike “seems to have been done by the other team”, in reference to Palestinian militants.
Biden repeatedly indicated that the USA would continue to deter any actor wanting to widen this conflict, and to conduct hostility against Israel.
The acts of barbarism, employed by Israeli troopers on the Gazans, or Palestinians of the West Bank to maintain illegitimate occupation, are tantamount to alien rule. So, Israelis are the real terrorists.
As per the directions of Biden, Israel has agreed to allow the opening of the Egypt-Gaza border— the 20 trucks carrying aid via the Rafah crossing would cross into Gaza in coming days for deliveries of food, water and medical supplies. Cairo decided to open the crossing on October 20.
Meanwhile, following this contradictory approach, the USA vetoed a UN Security Council resolution which was supported by 12 members that would have condemned Hamas’ attack on Israel, but did not favour Israel’s right to self-defence, while calling for a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
Israel had occupied the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights since 1967. When Hamas came to power in 2006, having won the elections, Israel’s contact and cooperation with Gaza became very limited.
During World War I, the Zionists pressured the British government to settle them in Palestine after the war. The Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 was a conspiracy of the USA and the British rulers against the Palestinians, which was implemented on 14 May 1948 through the UNO— the 1947 UN Partition Plan which established the state of Israel.
Nevertheless, after many attacks on Gaza in the past and recent years— Al-Aqsa mosques 2021 and this year’s assaults on the Palestinians, Hamas was forced to target Israel on October 7.
As regards Israel, many authors, writers, officials and doctors have proved with evidence that from the very beginning Israel has used banned chemical weapons like phosphorous bombs in Lebanon in the 2006 war, and several times in Gaza. Now, again, the Israeli military has been using these fatal weapons in Gaza.
Regarding Iranian assistance to Hamas, it is mentionable that the UN resolution 1541 on the ‘Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’ adopted by the General Assembly in 1960 accepts the legitimacy of the right of self-determination and opposes repressive measures of all kinds against the freedom fighters by the colonial power. And UN resolution 2625 of 1970 authorized the dependent people to seek and even receive support from outside to fight against the repressive machinery. So, in the light of these resolutions, the insurgency in Gaza cannot be called terrorism.
World history proves that wars of independence in connection with various nations were their reaction against subjugation, maintained by alien powers through state terrorism. In the 20th century, a majority of the Third World countries got independence after an armed struggle against the colonial powers. Even independence of the USA in the 18th century, and the unifications of Germany and Italy in the 19th, became possible after armed struggles. So, the question arises that were the peoples of these countries terrorists at that time?
In these terms, in the recent past, even the US-led occupying powers in Iraq and Afghanistan were intruders, and hence, the real terrorists who tended to conceal their own terrorist measures, employed the freedom fighters of these countries.
If any impartial observer studies the historical background of Hamas-Palestinians and the present war of liberation, he will definitely conclude that acts of barbarism, employed by Israeli troopers on the Gazans, including Palestinians of the West Bank to maintain illegitimate occupation, are tantamount to alien rule. So, Israelis are the real terrorists.
In one way or the other, those Western countries who are acting upon the ambivalent approach of the USA by not mentioning permanent ceasefire or an agreement to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are facilitators, abettors and financiers of Israeli state terrorism, and are also real terrorists.
