The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 26th January 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 26th January 2024
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
The Houthi Yemeni government has vowed to step up its blockade against Israeli and Anglo-American shipping in the Red Sea following further attacks on their missile bases by Anglo-American warplanes this week. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that in order resolve the crisis in the Middle East the USA must stop its hostilities and stop vetoing United Nations ceasefire resolutions. The Israelis continue their merciless attacks on civilian targets in the Gaza Strip and Oxfam has condemned deadly attacks on two warehouses in an area the Israeli army has designated as a “safe zone”.
The Yemenis are now launching rocket attacks on targets inside Israel – part of a larger Arab resistance campaign aimed at forcing the Zionist regime and its supporters to end the on-going aggression on Gaza. Resistance groups in Iraq have launched dozens of attacks on US military peronnel in Iraq and Syria to force Washington to end its support from Israel’s indiscriminate killing of the Palestinians.
Namibia, meanwhile, has called on the NonAligned Movement (NAM) to unite towards demanding an end to the Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. The call, made at the NAM summit in Uganda, follows the support of quite a number of member states for the South African action against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
On Sunday, the Israelis rejected a Hamas proposal to end the war and release more than 100 captives held by the Palestinian resistance movement in exchange for a withdrawal of Israeli forces, the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and recognition of the Hamas-led government in Gaza. But inside Israel calls for a realistic response to the Palestinian demands are growing on the street and even in the corridors of power in Tel Aviv and Washington.
This week Hamas condemned the deliberate targeting of Gaza’s hospitals by Israel as a war crime, urging the international community to take immediate action to stop it. The World Health Organization said most of the Palestinian Arab enclave’s 36 hospitals have been damaged by Israeli bombing. Only 15 are partially functioning and those are operating at up to three times their capacity, without adequate fuel or medical supplies, it says.
Hamas called on the United Nations and other international bodies to take immediate action to halt Israeli attacks on medical centres in the southern city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. Israeli tanks were firing directly at the upper floors of the specialised surgery building at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and blockading and targeting other hospitals in southern Gaza, claiming that Hamas fighters operate in and around these places. Hamas has denied the allegations. At Khan Younis’s main hospital, the biggest still functioning in the Gaza Strip, bodies were being buried on the grounds because it was unsafe to go out to the cemetery.
In Gaza, the death toll has risen to more than 25,500, predominantly comprising women and children. But despite its deadly and destructive campaign Israel has so far failed to achieve its main goals in the onslaught, namely destroying Hamas and securing the release of its captives through military means.
While the Zionists try to brush off the genocide claims at the international court in the Netherlands and increasing diplomatic pressure to end the fighting, they cannot ignore the fact that the Palestinian resistance is inflicting heavy losses on the Israeli invaders.
Last week Israel suffered its biggest daily loss in the current campaign. Twen- ty-four Israeli soldiers were killed including 21 trapped inside buildings hit by Pal- estinian anti-tank missiles that triggered a devastating explosion that caused the collapse of two blocks in central Gaza.