The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 14th February 2025
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 14th February 2025
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
A NEW ROUND of fighting in Gaza seemed imminent this week after Hamas suspended the prisoner exchange following Israeli breaches of the cease-fire agreement including delaying the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza, carrying out air-strikes across the enclave and hindering the entry of humanitarian aid.
Donald Trump, in one of his inane rants, said “all hell” would break loose if all the Israeli captives were not released by high noon on 15th February. But the American leader is wary of doing anything that might jeopardise his talks with Vladimir Putin that are set to take place in Saudi Arabia in the very near future. And the Israelis, despite all their bluster, may not be too keen to immediately return to the fray given their heavy losses in the Gaza war.
Fears of a return to fullscale war have abated after Israel belated complied with the truce terms. Hamas now says it will release three Israeli prisoners from Gaza on Saturday as scheduled following talks with the Egyptian and Qatari cease-fire monitors. But the Zionists are again attempting to push back their withdrawal from southern Lebanon until at least the end of the month amid reports that the Zionists are building five military outposts in the borderlands they still occupy.
Meanwhile Palestinians have denounced the Trump plan to deport all the Palestinians in Gaza as a “declaration of war”. The follow-up committee of the National and Islamic Forces, an umbrella for most Palestinian resistance movements and political parties said the American plan was “a new declaration of war to uproot our people”.
“Trump’s recent statements reflect the true face of the American-Zionist partnership in the aggression on our people” the Palestinian resistance committee said in a call for firm action from Arab leaders and the international community to stop any attempt at ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian National and Islamic Forces called on the Arab leaders going to the emergency Arab summit in Cairo on 27th February to “take practical and direct steps, and play a vital and effective role against (Trump’s) criminal plans...the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel requires direct political and material support to strengthen their resistance and establish them on their land”.
In The Hague the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, condemned Trump’s proposal, calling it “illegal, immoral madness” that would further erode international law. She warned that the plan is “grotesque and insulting” and turns Israel’s long-standing policies into an open international crisis.
At the White House King Abdullah of Jordan told Trump he would not budge in his opposition to the US president’s proposal to deport all the Palestinians in Gaza to other countries, such as Jordan. And Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi says he will not even travel to Washington for talks with the American leader as long as his criminal plan to ethnic cleanse the Gaza Strip remains on the agenda.
In Israel demonstrations in support of the truce and an end to the war are continuing to be held in Tel Aviv and dozens of other towns and cities across the country. The protests have been fired by the recent admission of Israel’s heavy losses in the Gaza war. General Eyal Zamir, the new head of the Israeli armed forces, said that Israeli casualties were much higher thapreviously reported, with at least 5,942 officially recognised bereaved families and over 15,000 soldiers admitted to the rehabilitation system. These are the heaviest losses Israel has suffered in any round of fighting in the Arab-Israeli conflict that began.