By Vicente Gaynor
At least 32 Palestinians, including 10 children, have been killed by Israeli bombs in the last 24 hours.
The genocidal State of Israel is intensifying the new offensive of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people that it has developed in recent weeks.
Its attempt to evict dozens of families from the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem and replace them with Zionist settlers has met with stubborn resistance. The case has a high level of media exposure and awaits a ruling from the Supreme Court. But the Netanyahu government tried to push forward the evictions, seeking to shore up his base against the parliamentary attempts to replace him that he faces.
What Netanyahu did not expect were the mobilizations of tens of thousands of Palestinians that stopped the evictions. In retaliation, the Zionist government began an escalation of harassment, provocations and attacks against the Palestinian people, just as the Muslim holiday of Ramadan began.
First, Israeli police tried to block access to the squares where Palestinian Muslims pray every evening during the month of Ramadan. After two weeks of fighting, they had to back down from the measure.
On the weekend of May 7-9, they directly attacked the thousands of families who were praying on the Esplanade of the Mosques. But each day they faced stiff resistance that did not allow them to fulfill the objective of controlling the sacred square before “Jerusalem Day”. May 10 is the anniversary of the 1967 Israeli invasion of Jerusalem, and it is the excuse with which thousands of extremist Zionists march through the Arab areas of the city with Israeli flags chanting “death to the Arabs.”
The government intended the march to pass through the Esplanade of the Mosques this year. Having failed to clear the area earlier, on the morning of the 10th they perpetrated a brutal repression, breaking into the Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.
Nour Mtour, a Palestinian man interviewed by Al Jazeera recounted:
“Snipers on the roofs of the mosque complex began firing rubber bullets at everyone, women, men, everyone. At the same time many policemen entered from all directions. I saw Israeli police attacking paramedics with batons just for doing their job.”
300 Palestinians were injured, seven of them hospitalized with serious injuries. But the heroic resistance repelled that advance as well, and the racist march had to be diverted.
The Zionist response was immediate, and that night bombings against the Gaza Strip began, killing dozens of people and collapsing a residential building.
The genocidal State of Israel tries to advance its racist and colonial project, but at every step the brave Palestinian people resist. They face one of the most heavily armed militaries in the world, backed by global imperialism. The Arab bourgeoisies have abandoned them, prioritizing their business and relations with the Zionist state. The Palestinians need the support and solidarity of the workers and peoples of the world.
The International Socialist League repudiates Israel’s criminal offensive, and we call for the broadest international mobilization in support of the Palestinian people against the Israeli repression and occupation. No solution is possible without the destruction of the genocidal State of Israel and the construction of a single, democratic and secular Palestine, with an internationalist and socialist perspective, hand in hand with the workers of the entire Middle East.
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