With the numbers of the murdered in Gaza surpassing 28,000 people, Israel is mercilessly bombing Palestinian in Rafah. As Palestinians prepare for a catastrophic ground invasion of Rafah, the U.S. Senate votes to send an additional $14 billion to Israel. Amnesty International warns Palestinians in southern Gaza are “facing the real and imminent risk of genocide.” Anti-Zionists and pro-Palestine people around the world are vehemently opposing Israel’s latest military offensive in Rafah and demanding immediate ceasefire. A report by Harsh Thakor.
The Israeli government is launching the most dangerous stage of its genocide on Palestinians. Over the last 4 months, and after massacring their families and destroying their homes, the Israeli military has forced displaced and traumatized Palestinians to flee from northern Gaza to isolated cities across southern Gaza, and then again to Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.
Due to the Israeli military’s catastrophic displacement of Palestinians, over 1.5 million people are crammed into Rafah, making it the most densely populated place on earth. We now are witnessing a further escalation of the Israeli military’s plans for ethnic cleansing and genocide. Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli military to prepare to “evacuate” civilians Rafah. At the same time, the Israeli military is preventing Palestinians in Rafah from going anywhere else in Gaza. There is nowhere left to go. This is genocide. This is the last stage before the Israeli government ethnically cleanses Palestinians from Gaza.
This was the plan from the beginning: maximum land with minimum Palestinians. And now, the Israeli government is the closest it’s ever been to making that threat a reality in Gaza. What is currently unfolding is part of a long-standing plan to expel Palestinians from their homes and remove them from their land, evident since before October and since the founding of the Israeli state.
With the numbers of the murdered in Gaza surpassing 28,000 people, Israel is mercilessly bombing Palestinian in Rafah. As Palestinians prepare for a catastrophic ground invasion of Rafah, the U.S. Senate votes to send an additional $14 billion to Israel. Amnesty International warns Palestinians in southern Gaza are “facing the real and imminent risk of genocide.”
Anti-Zionists and pro-Palestine people around the world are vehemently opposing Israel’s latest military offensive in Rafah and demanding immediate ceasefire.
Rafah Bombing and Protests
Last Monday, February 11, Israel embarked on an air attack on the south of the Gaza Strip, after having wiped out the northern and central area. Rafah, is now the central target of Israel’s attacks, where over a million of displaced Palestinians were forced to flee and take refuge from Israeli aerial bombing and ground invasion by the IDF, which has so far left more than 28,500 people dead in four months. Over hundred Palestinians, including babies and children, were killed last Sunday night as Israel intensified its aerial bombing in Rafah . Air attacks targeted different areas of the Rafah city with warplanes and helicopters with machine guns. Meanwhile hospitals are paralysed due to the untold destruction and people are starving from blockade of food and fuel by Israel.
Several Arab capitals last Friday witnessed massive demonstrations in solidarity with the Gaza Strip and denouncing the ongoing Israeli aggression. In Ramallah, Palestinians demonstrated in Al-Manara Square in protest against the ongoing Israeli genocide on the Gaza Strip.
On the 3rd of February activists of Kampkomiteen took part in two demonstrations in Trondheim, Norway. The first represented the labour movement and different solidarity organizations. After the rally, a march was held, in which slogans such as “Intifada, intifada!”, “Occupation no more, open up the prison door!” and “Let the children live!” were shouted. In the evening, an action was staged outside a venue where the representative of Norway for the Eurovision Song Contest would be chosen, calling for a boycott of Israel and protesting the participation of Israel in the ESC.
In Bergen a protest was held on the 7th of February against a meeting where a representative of the IDF and the Israeli foreign ministry took part. The demonstration condemned the prime minister of Norway for calling Israel “Norway’s friend” and Norwegian weapon manufacturing companies providing weapons to Israel.
On the 9th of February in the Jordan Valley complex along the border to Israel, protesters demanded construction of an air bridge to Gaza to deliver aid, scrapping of the Jordanian-Israeli peace agreement, and the closure of the Israeli embassy in Amman, supporting the Palestinian national resistance and stopping transfer of goods to Israel.
Demonstrations were also held on the 9th of February in Baghdad, Iraq, and in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, where slogans for the Palestinian national resistance were raised. In Yemen, a massive rally was held in Sana’a. Rallies were also held in the cities of Ma’rib and Taiz.
On the 7th of February around 100 protesters blocked the entrance to Woodward manufacturing facility in Niles in Chicago. The protesters claimed Woodward makes parts for Boeing that are used in missiles and bombs being dropped in Gaza. Protesters held Woodward complicit in the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians amid the war between Israel and Hamas.
On the 9th of February Hillary Clinton’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University in New York City. “Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, you are a war criminal! The people of Libya, the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, the people of Yemen, the people of Palestine as well as the people of America will never forgive you!” a protester shouted at Clinton, who was the Secretary of State during the Obama administration, responsible for several war crimes and massacres in the oppressed nations.
On Saturday the 10th of February nation-wide protests were waged again in solidarity with the Palestinian people engulfing 40 locations across the UK. In many protests, strong solidarity was expressed to the Palestinian national resistance front and the collaboration of the UK in the war crimes was condemned.
In Belfast, Palestinian protesters disrupted a Sinn Féin event on Palestine, denouncing the Party’s support to the merciless “Palestinian Authority” and its plans to join hands with the US president Joe Biden for a St. Patrick’s Day event.
On Sunday the 11th of February 10,000 protesters gathered in front of the parliament in Rabat, Morocco to demand the snapping of diplomatic ties with Israel. The protesters carried a huge Palestinian flag and banners with slogans “Normalization is treason”, “Stop the massacre”, “We stand steadfast with Al-Aqsa,” and “Down, down with the Zionists and Americans.”
In Medellín, Colombia, ICL posters in solidarity with the Palestinian people were displayed. Alongside them, posters for the 130th anniversary of the birth of Chairman Mao were also put up.
In Beirut, Lebanon, a march with the name “The Lebanon’s Flood in Support of Gaza” was organized where hundreds of people support of the Palestinian people denounced the genocide in Gaza.
In Rabat, Morocco, on February 11, thousands of people took to the streets against the normalization of ties with the government of Israel, calling it “treason”. Normalization is treason” and “Stop the Genocide” were some of the slogans in the demonstration in Rabat.
In London, England, thousands of people demonstrated in Downing Street, at the Prime Minister’s official residence. In the protests, the demonstrators demanded an immediate ceasefire, following the latest attacks in Rafah. During the protest, one activist was detained because of “suspicion of inciting racial hatred over a placard”.
Protesters took to the streets around the country Monday as fear mounts over an all-out attack on Rafah. Rallies took place outside the White House in Washington, D.C., in Los Angeles and other major cities. In different parts of the USA, people marched on the streets against the genocide of Israel backed by American imperialist state, which until now has financed Israel with more than 14 billion dollars.
In Berlin, Germany, new protests sprung with about 300 people assembling at the Brandenburg Gate on February 11 to denounce the attacks on Palestine. The protesters flung fireworks at the police, and also pelted stones when the police tried to break the march. Eleven people were arrested.
Harsh Thakor is a freelance journalist. Thanks for information from Red Herald and Palestinian Information Centre.