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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

ISRAELI TERROR SWEEPS WEST BANK

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

A new wave of terror is sweeping across the West Bank as Israeli troops and Zionist settler gangs rampage across the occupied territory. Street battles continue through- out the Gaza Strip as the Palestinian resistance fight to drive the Israeli invaders out of the Palestinian enclave.

An Israeli warplane was downed by Syrian air defence missiles and five Israeli soldiers were killed when their helicopter gunship was shot down over the Gaza Strip.

This week at least 40 defenceless civilians were killed and 60 more injured in an Israeli air raid on the Al Mawasi camp near Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. There was widespread devastation, with craters 10 to 15 metres deep, burying dozens of tents in an area that the Zionist regime had declared a "humanitarian safe zone". The Al Mawasi camp is a designated area for displaced Palestinians, many of whom were reportedly sleeping during the early hours of Tuesday when the Israelis hit their camp in a remote coastal area located between Khan Younis and Rafah in the south-east of the Palestinian enclave. The Israelis say tents, full of refugees were a Hamas “command and control centre” – a claim Hamas dismissed as a “blatant lie”.

A Jordanian truck driver was shot dead at the Allenby Bridge between Jordan and the occupied West Bank after he gunned down three Israeli security guards at the crossing point.

And the United Nations has called for an independent investigation into the killing of a Turkish-American activist by Israeli troops trying to disperse a protest in Beita, a town just outside the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.This week António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, stressed the urgency of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where the genocidal Israeli war has caused the worst death and destruction he said he has seen in his more than seven-year tenure. “The level of suffering we are witnessing in Gaza is unprecedented in my mandate as secretary-general of the United Nations,” he said.

“I’ve never seen such a level of death and destruction as we are seeing in Gaza in the last few months”.

Guterres further noted that it’s “unrealistic” to think the UN could play a role in Gaza’s future, either by administering the Palestinian territory or providing a peacekeeping force, because Israel is unlikely to accept a role by the world body. However, he added “the UN will be available to support any ceasefire”. He also expressed the UN’s readiness “to do whatever the international community asked for us”.

The Zionist regime has killed at least 40,988 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 94,825 others. Israel has deliberately targeted hospitals and schools sheltering displaced Palestinians, destroying more than 80 per cent of buildings in the Gaza Strip. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says at least half of its headquarters in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed amid the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocidal war in the Palestinian enclave.

Meanwhile General Ehud Barak, a former Israeli premier, says Israel is closer to defeat than to achieving a victory in Gaza. Barak told the media that Israel is faltering in Gaza, lacking both a strategy and a clear plan of action. He went on to say that there is no benefit in staying in Gaza for several years, emphasising that Netanyahu is a “crazy gambler” who endangers the lives of the Israeli captives.

Barak also criticised Netanyahu’s decision to maintain a military presence in the strategic “Philadelphia Corridor” with Egypt, saying this is a futile objective that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground. Netanyahu insists that Israeli troops must remain in the corridor to prevent weapons being allegedly smuggled into Gaza, a claim rejected by the Arabs as a justification for the Zionist regime’s aggressive and provocative policies.