Israel’s genocidal government has killed 1,054 Palestinians seeking aid since 27 May, according to the latest United Nations figures. The horrific death toll, alongside the more than 60,000 officially recorded deaths since October 2023, underscore the single-minded ruthlessness with which the Zionist regime is pursuing the extermination of Gaza’s Palestinian population.
Over 750 of those killed were attempting to access aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an organisation set up by US and Israeli authorities that is dominated by former military officials and soldiers. On Thursday alone, according to Gaza’s health Ministry, Israel slaughtered a further 62 Palestinians in attacks across the enclave, including 19 people waiting for aid.
Israel’s systematic killing of Palestinians goes hand-in-hand with its deliberate denial of the aid necessary to meet even the basic necessities of Gaza’s population. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), stated this week that some 6,000 trucks are waiting in Egypt and Jordan to gain access to Gaza, which Israel is denying. The agency estimates that one in five children in Gaza City are malnourished, while the Doctors Without Borders charity recorded one-quarter of all children and breast-feeding women screened at its clinics last week as malnourished. Gaza’s Government Media Office reported the death toll caused by starvation since the onset of the genocide at 122, with 83 of the victims being children.
“Most children our teams are seeing are emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying if they don't get the treatment they urgently need,” stated Lazzarini.
Israel has sought to justify its criminal denial of aid to civilians with the lying claim that supplies are falling into the hands of Hamas. Reuters revealed Thursday an internal investigation by the American government’s USAID, which can hardly be suspected of adopting an overly critical attitude towards Israel, containing the conclusion that there were “no reports alleging Hamas” benefited from US aid shipments between October 2023 and May this year.
Amid the intolerable human misery in Gaza, some of the European imperialist powers have felt compelled to acknowledge at least in words the terrible conditions prevailing in Gaza. But the statement signed earlier this week by Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and others, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron’s declaration Thursday that Paris will recognise a Palestinian state in September, will do nothing to stop the genocide and safeguard the lives of Gaza’s long-suffering inhabitants.
The reality is that Israel can only carry out the Gaza genocide with the brutality that can only be compared to the Nazis’ annihilation of European Jewry because the Zionist regime enjoys the full backing of imperialism. Netanyahu’s fascist government has received an uninterrupted supply of high-grade military equipment, predominantly from the US and Germany, including the bombs used to massacre defenceless men, women, and children. All of the imperialist powers, including those who signed this week’s statement, have enforced savage crackdowns against anti-genocide protesters. Supported by their accomplices in the media, the imperialist governments have smeared opponents of the genocide as antisemites, unleashed vicious police assaults, and connived with far-right Zionist organisations funded by the Israeli state to terrorise activists.
Leading the way is the Trump administration, which announced its support earlier this year for depopulating Gaza and turning it into a “riviera of the Middle East” under the direct control of Israel and its American paymaster. Fascist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalil Smotrich reiterated this goal in a Knesset debate this week, which was followed soon afterwards by the remark of Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu that Israel is “racing to wipe out Gaza.” Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, underlined Washington’s approval for the continued massacre in Gaza by announcing Thursday the withdrawal of the US delegation from peace talks with Hamas in Qatar, a move which was swiftly followed by the Israeli delegation.
Speaking at the White House Friday, Trump menaced Gaza’s population with the declaration that Hamas members “want to die” and would be “hunted down,” and that “Israel needs to finish it.” Israel has repeatedly used unproven assertions that all of its victims are Hamas members when it indiscriminately slaughters civilians. Trump’s remarks amount to a blank cheque for the genocide to continue.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose government could not even bring itself to sign on to the toothless statement of the other European imperialist powers on Gaza, telephoned Netanyahu this week to assure the fascist mass murderer of Berlin’s continued support. What Israel is doing in Gaza, i.e., indiscriminately killing civilians looking for desperately needed aid and turning the enclave into an unlivable war zone, “is understandable from the standpoint of security policy considerations,” Merz said, according to Tagesschau.
What is meant by this evasive phrase is the geopolitical and economic interests of the imperialist powers. Washington, Berlin, and others back Israel to the hilt in Gaza because the extermination of the Palestinians is seen by them as an essential component of the restructuring of the entire oil-rich Middle East to bring it more directly under the control of the imperialists by sidelining their main rivals, Russia and China. The close to two years since the launching of the genocide have thus also witnessed the decimation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the bombardment of Iran’s nuclear programme and other security facilities, all with the unflinching support of world imperialism. In pursuing their predatory interests, no criminal act of barbarism is foreign to the imperialist governments.
Among the latest criminal acts by Israel was the bombing early Friday of a tent sheltering displaced people near Khan Younis, killing one person. In addition, Gaza’s Media Office released a statement reporting the targeted killing of photo journalist Adam Abu Harbid, bringing the total number of journalists killed by the Zionist regime since the start of the genocide to 232. “We call on the International Federation of Journalists, the Federation of Arab Journalists, and all journalistic bodies worldwide to condemn these systematic crimes against Palestinian journalists and media professionals in the Gaza Strip,” the statement read.
Those lucky enough to escape death directly at the hands of Israel’s onslaught face the increasing danger of succumbing to the ravages of disease. According to British charity OXFAM, waterborne diseases have shot up in Gaza over the past three months by 150 percent. Gaza is a “petri dish of disease,” the organisation stated. Acute watery diarrhea has increased 150 percent, bloody diarrhea has risen by 302 percent, and acute jaundice cases have surged 101 percent.
The perpetrators of the genocide against the Palestinians and all of the horrific conditions of life associated with it must be held to account. This includes the accomplices of the Zionist regime in the imperialist powers of Europe and North America. As the World Socialist Web Site explained earlier this week in the statement entitled Mobilise the working class to stop the Gaza genocide!:
Mass and growing opposition to Israel’s crimes exists throughout the world. What is lacking is a clear program and perspective. The International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties insist that the genocide will not be stopped through appeals to the very capitalist governments carrying out and enabling the genocide. What is urgently required, and what has not yet occurred, is the independent eruption of the working class onto the political stage.