Netanyahu responded to the protests in Israel and Hamas’ willingness to negotiate by launching a criminal escalation with the total occupation of Gaza. The genocidal offensive of Zionism demands a strong and mobilized international response and a deep rooted solution: a free Palestine from the river to the sea.

By Ruben Tzanoff

Protests in Israel

On August 17, the country came to a standstill with a mobilization that gathered between 200,000 and 500,000 people, overflowing the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, as well as rallying in front of Netanyahu’s residence. The slogans were: “Cease fire now, bring back the hostages! Lives over war!”. The families of the hostages, together with thousands of workers and young people, were the driving force of a day that deepened the internal cracks in the Israeli regime.

Hamas responded with a willingness to negotiate a cease-fire. Netanyahu accused the demonstrators of being “traitors” and responded with repression and imprisonment, as a prelude to fleeing forward once again, authorizing the total occupation of Gaza.

Gaza occupation plan approved

On August 20, 2025, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz approved a massive military plan to occupy Gaza City, authorizing the mobilization of about 60,000 reservists and the extension of the service of another 70,000 for an additional 30 to 40 days.

The operation, known as “Gideon’s Chariots II”, envisages the forced evacuation of nearly one million Gazans, mostly previously displaced civilians, and intensified bombardment of densely populated neighborhoods such as Zeitoun and Jabalia. The Israeli armed forces are already operating around the city in what is envisaged as a gradual and devastating ground offensive.

More barbarism and colonialism

The approval of the Israeli plan to occupy Gaza signifies a new stage of horror for the Palestinian people. The mobilization of tens of thousands of reservists is not just a military maneuver: it implies the intensification of the ongoing genocide, with more bombardments on densely populated neighborhoods, the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people and the aggravation of famine and epidemics under conditions of total siege. This offensive seeks to consolidate colonization and ethnic cleansing. It is a plan of extermination and conquest that has nothing to envy of those executed by the Nazis.

Complicity of bourgeois governments

The great imperialist powers, the bourgeois governments of different countries and the international organizations at the service of imperialism have expressed some criticism and even threatened to take measures. However, the magnitude of their hypocrisy grows along with Israel’s crimes, since they maintain diplomatic and commercial relations, besides continuing to send arms to the Zionist murderers. They also have blood on their hands for every Palestinian who dies under the criminal bombings and occupation, or who are forced to flee their homes and land to save their lives.

Zionist crimes must be stopped

Throughout the world, it is necessary to promote the broadest unity of action in mobilization: No to the occupation of Gaza! Stop the bombing! Zionists out of Palestine! End the blockade of humanitarian aid! For the breaking of relations between governments and Israel! Boycott the colonialist interests of Israel and US imperialism!

There is no way out of the current situation without defeating the State of Israel and returning to the pre-1948 borders, the year when the martyrdom of the Palestinian people began. It is false that there are solutions in returning to the failed and deceitful policy of “two states” or in accepting the Abraham Accords signed in 2020 to normalize relations between Israel, the bourgeois governments and the Arab monarchies.

A theocratic and sectarian state, as proposed by Hamas, is not the way out either. The defeat of the State of Israel must give rise to a single, secular, democratic and socialist Palestine, free from the river to the sea, with the right of return of all expelled Palestinians and open to decide how to live together with the Israeli minority.

This perspective can only be realized in the context of a socialist revolution in the Middle East and a Federation of Arab Socialist Republics.