Yossi Schwartz, ISL the RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 04.07.2023
To fight against the Palestinian young people who defend the refugee camp and the nearby city, the Zionist state used the air force, hundreds of armored vehicles and many thousands of soldiers, policemen and the Shin Bet.
Yes, this large force killed 10 Palestinians including two children, wounded more than 100 Palestinians, arrested 120 Palestinians, and found and took many weapons. For Palestinian freedom fighters, facing airstrikes, drones and armored bulldozers, it is, as ever, an unequal fight. However, most freedom fighters managed to escape even though the Zionist army blocked all exits. They will return, get new weapons and continue to fight for national liberation against the Zionist crusader state backed by Western imperialists.
How much closer now is a full-fledged intifada or wider Middle Eastern war drawing in Israel’s sworn enemies, Hezbollah and Iran we will see in the near future.
Even the British newspaper the Guardian wrote: “Whatever the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may say, this nationally destabilizing assault is no show of strength by Israel, more the opposite. It will not eliminate terror, as right-wingers claim, nor radically alter the balance of fear. It could trigger a wider, uncontainable crisis“. [1]
The Zionist army claims that it is very careful not to injure civilians. However, “Several thousand Palestinians have fled their homes in the Jenin refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank after the launch of the biggest Israeli military operation in the area in two decades, Palestinian officials say.There are about 3,000 people who have left the camp so far,” the Jenin deputy governor, Kamal Abu al-Roub, told the AFP news agency on Tuesday, adding that arrangements were being made to house refugees in schools and other shelters in Jenin city.The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service gave the same figure and said it expected the exodus to continue, amid suggestions from Israel that Operation Home and Garden, which began in the early hours of Monday, could last several more days” [2]
Why then do they escape?
“According to WAFA (The Palestinian news service) “A Palestinian was today brought to Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin in critical condition with a bullet wound to the head, according to the Ministry of Health.
Medical sources said the Palestinian is from the village of Fahma, near Jenin, and was shot by Israeli soldiers during confrontations in Jenin.
Meanwhile, Israeli drones continue to bomb homes in Jenin refugee camp as reinforcements are brought to the besieged city and its refugee camp” [3]
The residents of Jenin also remember the massacre Israel committed in 2002.
This assault on the Palestinian people has also exposed the political nature of the opposition claiming to fight for democracy but support the Zionist war crimes.
“Knesset member [Simcha] Rothman, when there is a large-scale military operation — we do not continue with legislation that tears the nation apart,” Labor MK Gilad Kariv wrote on Twitter on Monday morning. “Please, announce that you are canceling the reasonableness standards hearings as long as the operation in Jenin continues. Opposition members argued that the nation needed to have a united front against terrorism and support the IDF’s soldiers, which it could not properly do if it was distracted by such controversial legislation. Inversely, some said that it wasn’t possible to concentrate on such important debates when the state faced such a security challenge. On Tuesday it was also contended that the coalition was undermining the legal system legitimacy that protected IDF soldiers from interventions by the International Criminal Court, which jeopardized troops in Jenin” [4]
The head of the opposition, MK Yair Lapid, as usual supported the war crimes and tweeted: “I am strengthening the security forces currently operating in Jenin. We are all behind you. This is a justified action against the terrorist infrastructure, which is carried out following high-quality and accurate intelligence.” He added: “The commando brigade, the paratroopers and Golani, together with the Shin Bet, are working against terrorist infrastructures and the attempts to build missile production arrays in Jenin with the help of Iran.” Strengthens the security forces that are now operating in Jenin in a determined and professional manner in the face of terrorism that keeps its head up. Any determined and responsible action by the government will receive full backing”.
Hadash the Stalinist front repeated its usual reformist nonsense that the solution is a Palestinian mini state alongside Israel.
“The Secretary General of the Israeli Communist Party (MKI), Adel Amer said in response to the attack on Jenin: “The ground and air attack that began at night against Jenin is a step up in the violence of the occupation. The government, which is led by extremist settler leaders, is doing everything it can to increase the violence. They are looking for blood and escalation. They want to turn Jenin into another Gaza – a besieged city that is under attack every morning, when the residents have nowhere to run. Only the overthrow of this terrorist government and striving to end the occupation and the realization of the national rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent state, will bring an end to the cycle of bloodshed.” [5]
The right centrist Socialist Struggle did not manage to write any position on the Zionist war on Jenin.
Down with the Zionist apartheid state!
Long live the struggle of the Palestinians against their oppression!
For a Red Free Palestine from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] Gardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/04/netanyahu-attack-jenin-weakness-palestinians-weak-too-danger
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/04/jenin-refugee-camp-west-bank-israel-military-operation
[3] https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/136609
[4] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-748805
[5] https://hadash.org.il/%d7%9e%d7%96%d7%9b%d7%9c-%d7%9e%d7%a7%d7%99-%d7%a2%d7%9c-%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%aa%d7%a7%d7%a4%d7%94-%d7%91%d7%92%d7%a0%d7%99%d7%9f-%d7%9e%d7%9e%d7%a9%d7%9c%d7%aa-%d7%94%d7%99%d7%9e%d7%99%d7%9f-%d7%a9/ (In Hebrew)