by a member of Socialist Struggle Movement, Israel/Palestine
The ceasefire was violated in a massacre planned and coordinated with the Trump administration. Returned abductees and their families are angry and anxious about the fate of the remaining abductees. Organize to fight against the renewal of the war of extermination.
A widespread massacre in the Gaza Strip. Within a few hours, more than 400 women and men went up in the smoke of the “hellfire” that the Israeli and US governments promised and delivered. Entire families perished in their sleep in the early hours of the morning. At least 63% of the victims were women, girls and children. The war of extermination is being renewed with the full backing of Trump, a scenario we warned against in advance. With this step, the government is also burying the ceasefire it signed, knowing that it would deliberately violate it later.
We extend solidarity to the two million residents of the Gaza Strip who have been under the army’s bombardment in the past 24 hours. Most of them have been huddled in tents in displaced persons’ camps for a year and a half.
Solidarity with the relatives of those abducted from Israel, whom the government is willing to sacrifice and is once again scuttling a deal for their return.
Solidarity with all residents on all sides of the fences, in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, inside the Green Line, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and in the region in general, in the face of a further intensification of a wave of massacres, oppression and imperialist aggression.
Netanyahu, Trump and Smotrich, together with the heads of the army and the Shin Bet (“intelligence” service), are triumphantly celebrating the massacre and are ready to sentence to death even the surviving Israeli abductees. This gang cynically and menacingly presents the indiscriminate killing as a step designed to put pressure on the Hamas leadership to agree to the dictates of the US and Israeli governments. It is unclear whether their plan is to continue and even intensify the attack, including a renewed ground invasion, and whether the new bloody phase of the war will last for days, weeks, or months.
The Israeli regime’s lies — who violated the agreement?
“Israel knowingly violated the ceasefire agreement with Hamas last night (Tuesday), with American approval, because it did not want to fully comply with the conditions it committed to two months ago. There is no other way to explain the decision to resume fighting in the Gaza Strip,” wrote Amos Harel, the military commentator for Haaretz.
Already in the first days after the agreement was signed, Netanyahu and Smotrich’s statements contradicted the agreement, especially with regard to the withdrawal from the Philadelphia corridor (area of Gaza that borders Egypt) in “phase two” and the end of the war in “phase three.” Indeed, the government of death did not fulfill any of its commitments under phase two.
It torpedoed the negotiations and refused to remove the occupation forces from the Philadelphia corridor. In order to force Hamas to unilaterally change the terms, the government systematically violated the ceasefire: it attacked the Gaza Strip on a daily basis — bombings that resulted in dozens of victims, prevented aid and food from entering the Gaza Strip, prevented access to drinking water, cut off electricity to water desalination plants and prevented tens of thousands of wounded and critically ill people from leaving the Gaza Strip for treatment, contrary to its commitments in the agreement.
The Trump regime’s barbaric attack on Yemen is coordinated with the new attack on the residents of the Gaza Strip. White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt clarified the direction of the Trump regime: “Hamas, the Houthis and Iran — all those who seek to terrorize not only Israel, but also the United States — will pay a price.”
The explicit threats of the bully in the White House and its full backing of Netanyahu strengthen his crisis-ridden government and increase the danger of a multi-theater military aggression by Israel with the support of American imperialism. Trump is not a “president of peace,” and he is no longer living up to his commitment not to start wars.
What Netanyahu calls the “Witkoff Outline” was nothing more than an attempt by the Trump administration to help Netanyahu extend phase one of the ceasefire, without moving to phase two. The Trump administration is clearly working to torpedo the ceasefire in Gaza — both by supporting the renewed attacks and by the threat of mass expulsions from the Strip that his administration is promoting.
The government of death once again abandoned the hostages when it dismantled the ceasefire. This is the continuation of the logic that has guided the government for a year and a half: torpedoing deals, delaying their implementation, dispersing deals into small portions. The strategic goal shared by the government and the army and the rest of the “security apparatus” is to continue the direct occupation of the Strip for the foreseeable future. A goal that contradicts and torpedoes reaching a comprehensive deal, and has as its true face the brutal oppression of the Palestinians with the aim of deepening the occupation regime.
Escalating the struggle against the government of death and war
The headquarters of the families of the kidnapped in its official statement exposed the lie of the government of death and the army leaders: “The Israeli government refused to declare the end of the war in order to implement the next stages of the deal and return all the kidnapped. The announcement that it is returning to war to return the kidnapped is a complete deception — military pressure endangers the kidnapped and the soldiers.”
A long series of personal statements and testimonies from abductees who returned from captivity and their families were published in order to reinforce this message. The “Awake Mother” organization, which represents families of soldiers in the Israeli army, declared: “We will not accept that our children be used as pawns for a government that has lost the public’s trust.” Einav Tsengauker chose to go as far as the fence that strangles the Gaza Strip to symbolically block the government’s military offensive.
It is important that the struggle to free the abductees adopts a principled call to oppose the attack on Gaza, and in particular against indiscriminate killing and the destruction of infrastructure. The war of annihilation not only endangers the abductees themselves, but also leads to an unimaginable human disaster for 2 million Palestinians. Deepening the cycle of bereavement and death should not and cannot provide security for anyone. Such a principled position will help to inoculate and prepare the movement to deal with further escalation by the government, which is trying to reunite the public behind the banner of war.
We must clearly and loudly oppose the renewal of the war of extermination and occupation in the Gaza Strip.
We in the Socialist Struggle Movement (ISA) call for organization against the policy of war, ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, the settlements, racism, and national oppression of the Palestinians. The attempts of the government of death to crush democratic rights are a danger to the struggle against the government’s agenda and Israeli capitalism.
The budget cuts, the crushing of social services, and the price increases — are part of the death government’s war against the most basic needs of the poor, the working class, young women, LGBTQ, Jews, and Arab-Palestinians, in the periphery and in the center. Occupation and war, including the occupations in Syria and Lebanon, are a disaster for the personal security of the masses who live under direct occupation, but also for all residents of the region. Therefore opposition to the policy of occupation and attacks must be an integral part of the struggle against the government and for democratic freedoms.
Get the army out of the Strip! End the war! Yes to the release of all for all, including the release of all those kidnapped in one fell swoop, and the release of all the thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees imprisoned in the torture camps and prisons of the occupation. Yes to rehabilitation and welfare for all! Join us in the continuation of the struggle!
