Gaza remains steadfast

The war on the Palestinians in Gaza has entered its 46th day, and resistance against the Zionist enemy remains steadfast. The determination and will to confront the occupation forces boldly and courageously are still there, despite the genocidal destruction of the enclave. Israel’s dirty war has targeted civilian infrastructure and left its mark on defenceless civilians, bombing schools and shelters full of children and women, and killing at least 13,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women. Even patients in hospitals are not safe; Israeli troops stormed Al-Shifa Hospital and removed 500 patients at gunpoint. “These acts not only blatantly contravene the rules of,” said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini on X, “they also show a total disregard for humanity.”

The world is witnessing this “text-book case of genocide” in real time on social media. The “civilised” West sees the scenes of death and destruction, but does nothing to stop the settler-colonial state. Morals, humanity and international law are being ignored. It is one-eyed and hypocritical, only seeing matters through Zionist eyes. The West supports this genocide by supplying the Zionist entity with money and weapons, while some Zionist Arab regimes help behind the scenes. According to some media outlets, UAE aircraft are being used in the bombing of Gaza. Most of these regimes want to eliminate Hamas so that the struggle for freedom does not spread to their own people and cause them to lose their weak thrones. That’s why demonstrations denouncing the Zionist attacks and supporting the Palestinians in Gaza are banned.

Gaza is facing the Zionist enemy alone; there is no country courageous enough to stand up with the Palestinians. Even Lebanon’s Hezbollah and its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who used to say that the resistance battlefield is united and that they are ready with missiles reaching Haifa and beyond, have failed the Palestinians in Gaza and did not open a front on the border in order to distract the enemy. Nasrallah’s latest two speeches suggest that he is no better than the Arab rulers. In both speeches, he played the role of military analyst, presenting the history of the Arab-Zionist conflict but forgetting his role as the leader of a resistance group that has boasted about its 100,000 fighters. Only the naive were waiting for him to enter the battle, as those who have killed children and women in Syria cannot fight those killing children and women in Gaza. They are two sides of the same coin. The war on Gaza has caused the last fig leaf of “resistance” to fall after Hezbollah’s war against Syrians exposed its ugly face.

Besieged Gaza is the open-air prison resisting Israel’s colonisation of Palestine – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]

OPINION: Israel has yet to tell a single truth not only since 7 October, but since the 1948 Nakba

The Hamas Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has shaken the world in more ways than one. Those who only wake up to the oppression and occupation in Palestine when Israeli lives are lost suddenly found their voices and condemned the killings, as if the “conflict” started on 7 October; 75 years of oppression was overlooked. Those who have been inspired by the steadfastness of the Palestinians have taken to the streets of world capitals in greater numbers than ever before to protest against Zionist barbarism, tyranny and injustice. Could this be the beginning of the end of the Zionist occupation state and the apartheid that it imposes on the people of occupied Palestine?

The spirit of confidence is added to the ingenuity and creativity of the Palestinian people, as they once again form the majority of the population in the holy land, something that hasn’t happened been the case the 1948 Nakba. The issue is back where it started, exposing the emptiness of their ideology as the Zionists seek the crumbs of their non-existent “right” to the land. That right belongs to the Palestinian people who seek liberation from the river to the sea.

The so-called peace treaties have failed to bring peace. The Oslo Accords have brought nothing but more settlements and settlers — all illegal under international law — and a security coordination “Palestinian Authority” led by the Zionist stooge Mahmoud Abbas, who fled as he watched his people being killed in their thousands. He did nothing because he too wants to eliminate Hamas and all the resistance factions so that he can maintain his grip on power through Fatah, his faction described by one commentator as a “mafia”. However, Hamas will remain, because the right to resist occupation is enshrined in international law.

“From the very beginning Israel was set up in circumstances which would inevitably invite resistance,” explained Dr Ghada Karmi in conversation with Professor Avi Shlaim. “There’s no way you can set up a state for a foreign people in a land which already has an indigenous people, throw them out, take their place and expect no come back.”

Ariel Sharon dreamed of waking up and not finding Gaza on the map. Sharon died, but Gaza remains steadfast. Long may it do so.

OPINION: ‘Do you condemn Hamas?’

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.