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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Gaza: Uneasy calm as Israelis withdraw

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

PALESTINIAN refugees and resistance units are returning to Gaza City and other areas of the enclave after the partial withdrawal of Israel forces in line with the cease-fire despite continuing Israeli provocations including opening fire on civilians in the parts of the Palestinian enclave that they still occupy. Palestinian and Israeli prisoners have been exchanged. UNICEF says that Israel must reopen the crossings into Gaza to allow desperately needed aid to reach Palestinians, including thousands of children suffering from malnutrition.

And Hamas militiamen, who are back on the street in Gaza, have clashed with the criminal gangs that worked with the Israelis during the occupation and some collaborators have already been summarily tried and shot in public.

Putin and Trump are going £1 Waiting for food in Gaza. to meet in Hungary next week. Syrian leader, Ahmad al Sharaa, the sectarian Muslim militia leader who overthrew the Baathist-led government in December 2024 with Turkish and Saudi support, has held talks with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin reflecting the new Syrian government’s desire to promote cordial relations and cooperation with the Russian Federation. And a member of the communist-led Democratic Front for Peace & Equality (Hadash) in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, has been suspended for two months after he heckled Donald Trump when the American president was addressing the Knesset on Monday. Hadash MPs Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif shouted “terrorist” at Trump and held up signs that read “Recognise Palestine” before they were escorted out by Knesset security.

Hamas freed the last 20 remaining Israeli prisoners on Monday in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, as part of a deal brokered by the USA, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey. The remains of nine dead captives have also been returned to Israel via the Red Cross but 19 others are still unaccounted for. Hamas says it made all efforts to safeguard the lives of captives in Gaza “despite the attempts of war criminal Netanyahu and his terrorist army to target and eliminate them” but the Israelis claim that some, if not all, were shot by the Palestinians. Hamas says it has delivered the bodies of all dead prisoners “that it was able to reach”.

“It requires great effort and special equipment to search for” the remains of the other 19 dead hostages, the Palestinian resistance movement said. “We are making great efforts to resolve this issue”.

As part of the first phase of the agreement to end the two-year Israeli-American genocidal war on the Gaza Strip 1,968 Palestinians were freed from Israeli prisons in what Hamas called a “victory of steadfast resistance”.

Greeted by joyous relatives and friends the freed Palestinian prisoners provided harrowing accounts of systematic abuse, describing Israeli prisons as “slaughterhouses” where they endured torture, starvation, and psychological warfare.

Director General of the Shifa Medical Complex, Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, said the recently released Palestinian prisoners are arriving with severe physical and psychological conditions, including mutilation and disabilities resulting from systematic torture and medical neglect in Israeli prisons.

He noted that the freed prisoners “have a very poor health and mental condition, and the effects of torture remain on them.” He emphasised that due to deliberate medical negligence during their imprisonment, “some of them have been mutilated”.

The doctor noting that many of the prisoners had been wounded during the conflict and received no medical care while detained. This medical crisis is further compounded, he added, by Israel’s imprisonment of a “large number of Palestinian doctors,” which has worsened the healthcare collapse in the Gaza Strip. At least 77 Palestinians have died in Israeli detention over the past two years and over 10,000 Palestinians continue to be unlawfully held in Israeli prisons.