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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Guns blaze as Israelis spurn peace offer

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

Guns blaze in the streets of Gaza. The Palestinian resistance hits back at the Israeli invaders forcing the Zionists to extend conscription to three years and raise the age limit to 45 for reservists. Egyptian and Qatari efforts to end the fighting continue in Cairo. Hamas says it’s willing to consider a short-term truce for a prisoner swap and the supply of emergency food and medical supplies into the Palestinian enclave as the first stage towards a truce. Saudi Arabia says there can be no diplomatic relations with Israel until the war stops and an independent Palestinian state is recognised on the 1967 borders with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital. And Spain has suspended all arms export licenses to Israel, noting that recent events “made us realise the importance of a just and permanent solution to the question of the Palestinian people”.

Hamas is proposing a three stage peace plan. Each stage will last 45 days. The Israeli hostages will be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners. The reconstruction of Gaza will begin and Israeli forces withdrawn completely from the Strip. But the Netanyahu government in Tel Aviv says it will accept nothing less than the complete destruction of Hamas and Israel’s permanent occupation, in one form or another, of the Gaza Strip.

Last weekend thousands took to the streets across Israel to call for far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resignation and new elections. Speakers at the Tel Aviv protest demanded the return of hostages held in Gaza accusing the Netanyahu government of being indifferent to the hostages’ fate and Netanyahu of being guided by personal considerations and stalling to avoid fraud and bribery investigations and elections.

Meanwhile the American foreign minister, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is holding talks with the Arab mediators and the Israelis says “a lot of work” remains to be done to bridge the gap between Israel and Hamas on terms for a new ceasefire and hostage-release deal. But the real problem is not Tel Aviv, but Washington itself. Though Blinken talks about a “two state” solution that would give the Palestinians some semblance of sovereignty no-one on the Arab street believes him. All the imperialists want is to maintain their Israeli puppet’s position in the region and all that they’re prepared to give the Palestinians is the bogus “autonomy” that operates in parts of the West Bank.

Last week United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the world is entering into an “age of chaos” as the UN Security Council remains sharply divided over Israel’s war on Gaza. Guterres said he was “especially alarmed” after Israel said last week that it intends to focus its military assault in Gaza on the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million people have sought shelter.

The head of the UN also called for reforms to the UN Security Council, which has been unable to agree on a joint position on the war in Gaza despite calls from many UN agencies for an urgent ceasefire. “The United Nations Security Council – the primary platform for questions of global peace – is deadlocked by geopolitical fissures,” he said.

“This is not the first time the Council has been divided – but it is the worst. Today’s dysfunction is deeper and more dangerous”.

The Israelis say their new offensive is aimed at rooting out the Palestinian guerrillas entrenched in a network of tunnels across the Strip. But the Palestinians believe the ultimate objective is to force the Palestinians to flee to Egypt to get their hands on the still to be exploited natural oil and gas fields in Gaza’s waters and clear the Strip for Zionist settlement.

This will inevitably lead to another blood-bath. “Any military operations in Rafah – with its limited space and overcrowdedness with over 1.5 million Palestinians displaced by the Israeli army – would lead to brutal massacres unprecedented in modern history,” said Mustafa Barghouti, the leader of the West Bank Palestinian National Initiative party.