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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Arabs fight as Israel plans new ethnic cleansing

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

Israeli warplanes pound Beirut as Hezbollah resistance forces battle to drive the Israelis out of southern Lebanon. Palestinian guerrillas are ambushing Israeli patrols in northern Gaza and launching attacks deep inside Israel itself. American B-2 Stealth bombers have raided military bases in Houthi-controlled north Yemen. And back in Cairo leaders from Fatah, the Palestinian movement that runs the autonomous West Bank administration and Hamas, which heads the Gaza Strip government, have agreed to form a Palestinian unity government for Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has again rejected international calls for a ceasefire. He’s also insisting that there now must be a buffer zone along the border with Lebanon while demanding the withdrawal of the long-standing UN peace-keeping force that the Zionists want out of the way of their invasion force.

But Israel’s latest attack on the UNIFIL force has provoked an angry backlash from the European Union whose members contribute troops to the peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon. After hours of negotiations, all of the EU bloc’s 27 countries signed a joint statement on Sunday condemning Israel’s attacks against UN missions after 15 UN personnel were injured when Israeli troops forced entry into their Lebanese base.

The Zionists still dream of victory, but Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem says the best possible outcome to the conflict is for Israel to stop attacking Lebanon and Gaza. The Lebanese resistance movement, which is also a major player in the Lebanese parliament, has hit back with a vengeance in recent days with rocket and drone attacks throughout northern Israel including a strike on a barracks near Binyamina that killed four members of the crack Golani Brigade and wounded more than 60 others.

“The solution is a ceasefire. We are not speaking from a position of weakness,” Qassem said. “If the Israelis do not want that, we will continue,” he added. He said the Zionist settlers in northern Israel would then be able to return home after a ceasefire deal is reached through an indirect agreement.

But he highlighted that “the number of uninhabited settlements will increase, and hundreds of thousands, even more than two million, will be in danger at any time, at any hour, on any day” if the Zionist regime keeps the war going in Lebanon and Gaza. “The resistance will never be defeated because they’re the ones that own the land. They will fight and die in dignity. Victory will come with patience,” the Hezbollah deputy chief stressed.

Fears that the Zionists are now moving to drive all the Palestinian Arabs out of the Gaza Strip are growing after the Israelis told Palestinians in northern Gaza to evacuate to the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone” in the Strip’s south.

Aida Touma-Sliman, a member of the communist-led Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) in the Israeli parliament, said: “While most attention is on Lebanon and Iran, it appears that Israel is enacting what was named ‘The Generals Plan’ in northern Gaza, which includes the displacement or starvation of all people still in the northern Gaza Strip. This plan is a plan of ethnic cleansing and sets the scene for the permanent Israeli occupation of all the northern Gaza Strip. It could also open the way for the vision held by many in the government … of resettling Gaza with Jewish settlers. The world must act to stop this new and dangerous escalation in Gaza.”