Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip
Stop the Zionist attack against the Palestinian people!

By Diego Dalai - Thursday, November 15, 2012

In a new military operation against the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip, the army of the Zionist state of Israel has assassinated Ahmed Al-Jaabari, the military commander of Hamas, an Islamist party that has a lot of popular support and has governed the Gaza Strip since 2006. Al-Jaabari was attacked with an Israeli missile that struck the car in which he was traveling. This murder is part of a new Israeli offensive against the Palestinian people, that is already known as “Operation Pillar of Defense,” and that brings to mind “Operation Cast Lead” of 2008, when it attacked the Gaza Strip, with a bloody toll of more than 1400 Palestinians dead. Although it has not yet unleashed an invasion like that of 2008, it has deployed extensive forces around the Gaza Strip; with its air force and artillery, it has attacked police stations, training camps of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (another influential radical Islamist organization in the Gaza Strip), and other targets, even attacking the civilian population, with the toll of at least 9 dead and dozens of wounded.

Israel threatens: “All options are on the table”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared, “We will consider new actions in the next few days,” and army spokesmen stated that “all options are on the table. If necessary, the army is prepared to initiate a ground operation in Gaza.” The aim stated by the army is “weakening the chain of control and command of the Hamas leadership, as well as its terrorist infrastructure.” Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government had been threatening this offensive for days, trying to hide behind the launching of missiles (that do not manage to cause property damage or casualties) that Hamas carries out from the Gaza Strip. So army patrols had killed several Palestinians since Saturday.

In Gaza, the Hamas leaders stated that Israel “has opened the gates of hell,” with the attack that killed Al-Jaabari, while Islamic Jihad stated that “Israel has declared war on Gaza, and it will bear the responsibility for the consequences.”

For its part, the Palestinian Authority (led by the PLO, of the historic leader, Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004) an open collaborator with Israel, that governs the West Bank, had to condemn the attack and blamed the Zionist state for “the consequences of this new act of aggression.” Fearing an even greater escalation that could destabilize the entire region, the Egyptian government and the Arab League, also a collaborator of Israel against the Palestinian people, condemned the attacks and demanded a ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, with the approval of the US, that again reiterated that Israel has “the right to defend itself,” seems to want to bolster his campaign for the January 2013 elections. Allied with Avigdor Lieberman’s extreme right, they have promised “to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the terrorist threat.” These days, Israel has also provoked skirmishes with al-Assad’s army on the Syrian border. There is a jump in the tense situation the region is experiencing, and it is not possible to say where it could go nor what consequences it could have in a region that is experiencing a civil war in Syria, and where the threats of an armed conflict with Iran remain, because of its nuclear project.

November 14, 2012
[From the Fracción Trotskista, ft-ci.org – Unofficial translation]