The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine confirms that the suspicious movements of war criminal and zionist sympathizer “Tony Blair,” former Prime Minister of Britain, and his connection with the dubious international movement around the so-called “day after in Gaza,” indicate a zionist and Western insistence, sponsored by some Arab regimes, on attempting to pass suspicious plans targeting not only the Gaza Strip but the entire Palestinian cause.

The Front considers the return of the man behind the lie of “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” whose hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people, mercenary Tony Blair to the international and political scene, as an ominous sign, asserting that our people and their resistance will thwart any efforts or plans targeting voluntary displacement of our people, undermining the resistance, or achieving a fictitious victory for the zionist entity through attempts to pass political approaches that place the Gaza Strip under international custody or surveillance.

The Front renews its affirmation that the Palestinian people have expressed their stance that there is no guardianship or displacement, and that our people alone will decide the form of governance or political system in the Gaza Strip. The resistance will remain present and a guarantor for any political efforts contributing to arranging the Palestinian house, and will not be outside its framework.

Tony Blair, the liar, deceiver, and war criminal, will have the same fate as all war criminals, which is nothing but the dustbin of history, he and all those who conspire and participate in committing war crimes against peoples, especially the Palestinian people.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Department
1-1-2024

Source: Resistance News Network

The Popular Front welcomes South Africa’s filing of a case in the International Court of Justice against the “israeli” entity for committing genocide.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine welcomed South Africa’s submission of a request to the International Court of Justice to bring a lawsuit against the “israeli” entity for committing acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

The Front again praised the advanced positions of South Africa, which it has taken since the beginning of the aggression, whether in its political (https://t.me/PalestineResist/23455) and diplomatic (https://t.me/PalestineResist/20364) steps or its widespread popular movement, stressing the need for these positions to be emulated by all countries of the world that stand by our people and condemn the zionist war of genocide and adopt stances different from some of the countries that are complicit and partnering with the entity in these crimes.

The Front concluded on the importance of South Africa’s step to put an end to the zionist crimes of genocide against civilians, health facilities, services, and infrastructure, and to prosecute the leaders of the zionist occupation as war criminals in international courts for the unprecedented crimes and massacres they committed, emphasizing the need for this trial to include all the leaders of countries who provided protection, cover, financial and arms support, and political backing to the “israeli” entity.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Department
30-12-2023

Source: Resistance News Network

Excerpts from a presentation given at the Socialist Unity Party national plenum on Dec. 16, 2023.

COP28 just concluded in Dubai. Annual COP (Conference Of the Parties) conferences are sponsored and organized by the United Nations. They are supposed to be where nations get together and map out a strategy and set goals to beat back climate change.

This year’s conference will be remembered as the one when the oil companies took over. The conference’s leader was Sultan Al Jaber, who happens to be the CEO of the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil company. 

UAE is one of the most oil-rich nations in the world. Jaber has a close relationship with Saudi Arabia and, by extension, the United States. Jaber’s ascent to the leadership resulted from a carefully crafted, years-long plan accomplished with the guidance of the world’s five biggest public relations firms, all based in the United States. Jaber’s leadership impressed John Kerry, Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, who praised him and has visited with him seven times since joining the Biden administration.

The world’s poorest countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, are only responsible for a minuscule portion of the greenhouse gases that heat the atmosphere. Britain and the U.S. are historically responsible for more than half. But because of the poverty imposed on them by imperialist wars, the theft of their resources, and economic sanctions, it is much more difficult for poorer countries to recover from extreme weather events. The anger over this has been growing at each one of these conferences. For years, there has been an outcry for the rich imperialist countries to organize a fund to develop renewable energy and, more importantly, for developing countries to recover from punishing weather events. Moving people inland, rebuilding infrastructure, and recovering from spikes in the costs of medical care are all very expensive.

At last year’s conference in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, this issue turned the conference into somewhat of a battleground, forcing the imperialist countries to agree to a Loss and Damage fund. Since then, the U.S. has been demanding that it be organized through the World Bank, opening the door to calling already existing aid and loan packages part of the fund. Funds that were promised have been dribbling in, leaving countries that have already been devastated by deadly weather events, like Pakistan, Madagascar, and Mozambique, in dire straits.

During the Sharm el Sheik conference last year, a former Clinton administration climate official was asked why he thought a Loss and Damage fund wouldn’t be realized. He responded that it seemed too closely related to the demand for reparations for Black people in the United States. Once again, an agreement for a Loss and Damage fund has been announced this year, but how it will turn out remains to be seen.

Part of the UAE’s clever agenda to win leadership of COP28 included sending some aid to countries in the Global South in the months leading to the conference and Jaber pushing for the Loss and Damage fund to be finally organized. The amounts donated by the UAE are tiny compared to the enormous oil profits of even their own oil operation and far less than the $332 billion raked in by U.S. oil companies in 2022. He used the racist intransigence on the part of the United States, hoping to burnish his reputation with the Global South delegates. The White House doesn’t seem to mind the minor difference in policy because having the UAE run the show results in such significant gains.

The gains most significantly include doing away with the language of “phasing out” fossil fuels. Jaber pushed for the final text to call for lowering emissions from the production of fossil fuels using Carbon Capture and Sequestration to limit the emissions only from power generation. CCS is panned almost universally by climate scientists and engineers as unscalable and as a means to allow the continued use of fossil fuels. Jaber’s narrative is sleight of hand – distracting the attention from the emissions from all sectors of the capitalist economy, including heavy transportation. Manufacturing, aviation, and agriculture, not to mention Pentagon warfare, which has been excluded from discussion at COP conferences for years. If placed on a list of countries contributing GHGs to the atmosphere, the Pentagon would rank somewhere near Portugal or Denmark. But it isn’t just the emissions from warfare that need to be exposed. It is the poverty imposed on so much of the world that maintains the imbalance of power.

These conferences have always been exclusive affairs. Climate activists in many organizations from around the world travel to them and can participate in certain forums, but the real decisions are made behind closed doors. Still, millions of people around the world have pinned their hopes on the United Nations to somehow overpower the domination of the imperialist powers. The reality is that the global effort is nowhere near on track to keeping the atmosphere below 1.5° higher than pre-industrial temperatures. So far, in 2023, oil and natural gas extraction have reached their highest levels ever, and energy giants ExxonMobil and Chevron are buying up other oil operations to expand. The fact that the fossil fuel industry has now exerted so much weight on the outcome of the conferences is a dangerous precedent and calls into question the value of the conferences as a vehicle for the desire of humanity to save the planet.

The most promising development at COP28 is that pro-Palestinian activists held an action in solidarity with the people of Gaza and called for a ceasefire. The restrictions on them were shocking. They were not allowed to chant the widespread slogan, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” (they still did) nor carry a Palestinian flag. Some were detained and restricted to certain areas away from the conference halls. But they bravely held their protest to show that climate change and war are the same issue. Since the Biden/Netanyahu genocidal assault on Gaza began, others, including Greta Thunberg and activist colleagues from developing countries, have come out in solidarity with Palestine. They’ve been slammed for it in the press but have held their ground.

The movement to save the planet must embrace the fight against U.S. imperialist wars, proxy wars, and sanctions, while building solidarity with its victims. If possible, the issue has to be brought to the floor of the U.N. conferences, but more importantly, it must link the issues at every climate change action in the streets and around the world. Without the Pentagon, there would not be a Global South. Millions now trapped in endless poverty would be living free from the devastating threat of U.S. war and able to use their own natural resources freely.

 

 

Detroit – Today’s amazing Dec. 25 Hamtramck-Detroit-Dearborn Shut it Down for Palestine caravan was sparked by a simple graphic shared on social media, spread by word of mouth. There was no organization calling it, no supporting organizational logos.

Cars gathered at a parking lot in Hamtramck, a small historically migrant town within Detroit – formerly Polish and Eastern European but now mostly Muslim Bangladeshi and Yemeni. Flags, large and small, hand-lettered signs decorated cars, stretched across car hoods and poked out of retracted moon roofs.

How many cars? How many does it take to shut down a four-lane interstate freeway, get out of cars, and shoot off red smoke flares? Although I was in the middle of the line of cars, the action and smoke were about a quarter mile ahead. In downtown Detroit, police couldn’t keep the caravan from circling Campus Martius park, dubbed “Detroit’s meeting place,” drawing thumbs up and victory signs from pedestrians.

Then down Michigan Avenue to stop traffic again, this time at the Greenfield Road underpass, honking horns and then finally clogging West Dearborn business and residential areas. 

This Instagram post sums it up: “Hundreds showed up today for Palestine. The first and biggest car rally in Michigan. Let’s not forget what we are doing this for … this is for showing all the people in the USA how powerful we are when we unite as one and give us what we demand: Permanent ceasefire!” 

Activists are on a six-day sit-in protest in Kuala Lumpur in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against the blocking of ceasefire attempts by the US. They have continued their protests despite obstructions by the police and city authorities

More than 100 Malaysians have joined a sit-in demonstration outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur, in solidarity with Palestine and in response to the continued US veto to attempts for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza.

The Kepung Demi Palestin or the “Siege for Palestine” demonstration is organized by the Palestine Solidarity Secretariat (SSP), a coalition of 48 groups, including political parties from both the ruling and opposition coalitions, civil society groups, and youth and student movements.

The six-day long sit-in began on the evening of Tuesday, December 26, with dozens participating in the demonstrations despite rain and obstruction by the police. According to reports, demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Bebas, bebas! Bebas Palestine” (Free, free! Free Palestine) and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” while holding flags of Palestine and Malaysia, and placards that read “US embassy is nest for terrorists.”

According to the organizers, the original plan had demonstrators holding a six-day long picket right outside the US embassy. But a blockade by the Kuala Lumpur Police prevented demonstrators from reaching the section of the road in front of the embassy.

Despite the police attempts to block the sit-in from happening, demonstrators began camping on the sidewalk of Jalan Tun Rezzak, a major avenue adjacent to the US embassy. The SSP plans to continue the demonstration until December 31.

In the face of potential police threats to dismantle the camps, on Wednesday, December 27, Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM), which is also a part of the SSP, called for a huge crowd to gather in support of the demonstrators camped overnight on Tuesday.

“While the police have not allowed us to put up protest camps in the vicinity, the comrades are fighting back and continuing their stay overnight,” read a statement released by PSM on Wednesday. “We hope to get more solidarity support from fellow Malaysians, looking forward that the protest crowd will grow (sic).”

The demonstration received significant support from civil society groups and politicians across political, religious, and ethnic lines, illustrating the widespread support for the Palestinian cause in Malaysia.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the SSP demanded the right to peacefully assemble and express dissent against the US. The SSP stated that local authorities had tried to remove those camping near the embassy in the early hours of Wednesday.

“We decided to set up tents and bases for the next six days along a sidewalk at Jalan Tun Razak that does not block traffic or inconvenient pedestrians,” the SSP statement read. “However, at 3 am, we were greeted this time by enforcement officers from Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) [the seat of the city administration] asking us to remove our tents and end our picket.”

The demonstrators were reportedly able to return to their sit-in camps hours later, but the threat of forced evacuation by authorities remains.

“We demand our right to peacefully assemble and show our dissent towards the US for their continued support of the apartheid activities Israel is carrying out against the Palestinian people,” the statement emphasized.

“This systemic genocide has been going on for the past 75 years and 81 days, it is time we tell America that Malaysians have had enough, and we are not going to stand idly by and watch a massacre. We will continue our picket as planned and invite everyone to join us as a show of support and solidarity towards our Muslim, Christian and Jewish Palestinian brothers and sisters,” it added.

The US remains a major impediment for a ceasefire, having vetoed all attempts in the UNSC, while it militarily and politically continues to support the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza. This is despite widespread opposition and backlash from the world over.

Since October 7, Israel has killed over 21,200 Palestinians in the besieged and blockaded territory of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, of whom over 20,900 have been killed in Gaza alone. More than two-thirds of those killed so far are women and children. Israel has also displaced more than 1.9 million of the 2.3 million population of Gaza and destroyed more than 300,000 housing units.

The US remains a major impediment for a ceasefire, having vetoed all attempts in the UNSC, while it militarily and politically continues to support the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza. This is despite widespread opposition and backlash from the world over.

Since October 7, Israel has killed over 21,200 Palestinians in the besieged and blockaded territory of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, of whom over 20,900 have been killed in Gaza alone. More than two-thirds of those killed so far are women and children. Israel has also displaced more than 1.9 million of the 2.3 million population of Gaza and destroyed more than 300,000 housing units.

Source: Peoples Dispatch

Statement issued by the Palestinian resistance forces: Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) 

Beirut, Dec. 28, 2023

The leadership of the Palestinian resistance factions held a consultative meeting in Beirut, where they discussed the developments of Al-Aqsa Flood battle amidst the ongoing zionist aggression on our land, people, and holy sites, especially in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian West Bank, and Al-Quds. The meeting concluded with the following results:

First: With all pride and honor, the attendees praised the heroic steadfastness of our people in the occupied lands, especially the legendary steadfastness of our people in the Gaza Strip, where our children, women, and all our people, with bare chests, face the brutal acts of the “israeli” enemy, which targeted shelters for the displaced, homes, mosques, churches, schools, hospitals, and the general infrastructure facilities, as part of implementing a genocidal and scorched-earth policy against our steadfast people, who firmly thwarted the mass displacement project to the Arab neighbors, to empty the steadfast Strip of its residents, and annex it to the state of occupation and mass murder. This plan very clearly aims to end the Palestinian national cause and liquidate the legitimate national rights of our people, in determining fate, establishing the independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital, and ensuring the right of return for the refugees of our people to their homes and properties, per Resolution 194, in contrast to the annexation of territories occupied in the aggressive war of 1967, and the establishment of “greater israel” at the expense of our national project, the identity of our people, and their right to sovereignty over their land and the establishment of their independent state with Al-Quds as its capital.

Second: The attendees highlighted the heroic actions of the valiant resistance in the occupied Palestinian lands in general and in the Gaza Strip in particular. They praised its ability to thwart the enemy’s goals, demonstrating its incompetence and the fragility its forces in the field. They also praised the unity of struggle of all the military wings of the resistance factions, as manifested in the field in creativity, smart tactics, and actions that exceeded expectations in an extension of the strategic battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, which made October 7, 2023, a historical turning point, shaking the international situation. This reaffirms that the Palestinian cause still is and will remain the central issue at the regional level, and that the decline in interest was not due to a decline in status in the region’s political map, but rather an expression of the decline of the official leadership role, which based its calculations on betting on the American “two-state solution” project, and the “understanding” project with the zionist occupation “Oslo Accords.”

In this context, the attendees affirm their determination to continue the resistance in the field, and in other forums, until the brutal war on our people stops, and the aggression is repelled from the Strip.

Third: The attendees affirmed that the direct and immediate combative and struggle tasks to be achieved are as follows:

    1) Immediate cessation of the war of genocide, scorched earth, and ethnic cleansing by the “israeli” enemy on the Gaza Strip.

    2) Breaking the siege on the Strip, starting to supply our people with all necessities of life, and simultaneously rebuilding and reconstructing the infrastructure institutions and facilities. This includes providing the necessary supplies to reactivate and support the medical system, which is almost collapsing under the barbaric acts of the “israeli” aggression, and transferring serious injury cases from the Strip to treatment abroad in brotherly and friendly countries.

    3) Arab, Islamic, and international commitment to reconstruction, and requesting brotherly and friendly countries, and international and regional organizations, foremost among them the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the United Nations, to launch an international initiative to reconstruct what the occupation and barbaric aggression have destroyed in the Gaza Strip, and to work earnestly to bring life back to the Strip’s arteries, to provide the necessary foundations for enhancing the steadfastness of our people and their adherence to their land, as a minimum reward for the legendary sacrifices that astonished the whole world.

Fourth: The attendees stressed their condemnation and rejection of the scenarios by Western and “israeli” circles for the so-called “day after” in Gaza. They confirmed that such rejected scenarios, both in detail and in general, are merely betting on the failed attempt to break the steadfastness of our people and our valiant resistance; these are mere pipe dreams that will not be realized now or in the future, especially after the signs of the enemy’s defeat began to appear, in its explicit acknowledgment of its deaths and injuries at the hands of our resistance, and its forced withdrawal (https://t.me/PalestineResist/23657) of the most significant part of its forces, after the disgrace it suffered in the field at the hands of our heroic resistance fighters in the field.

The attendees affirm that our national movement and valiant resistance possess a wealth of struggle, intellectual, and political stock that qualifies it to reject all projects and scenarios presented as a “solution” to the Gaza cause, as there is no separate cause for the Strip, another for the West Bank, and another for Al-Quds.

The Palestinian cause is the cause of all of Palestine, land, people, rights, future, and destiny. The solution to the cause can only be achieved through the departure of the occupation and all forms of settlements, paving the way for our people to determine their national destiny on their land.

Fifth: The attendees agreed on the need to confront the consequences of the barbaric war on our people with a unified strategic and combative struggle, reintroducing our cause as a national liberation cause for a people under occupation. In this context, they propose the following suggestions to all parties of the Palestinian national movement and its components:

    1) Calling for a comprehensive national meeting that includes all parties without exception, to implement what was agreed upon in previous Palestinian dialogues, and to confront the consequences of the brutal war on our people in the Gaza Strip, and the barbaric attacks by settler gangs and occupation forces, and settlement and annexation projects in the West Bank, especially in Al-Quds.

    2) Rejecting all solutions and scenarios for the so-called “future of the Gaza Strip,” and presenting a national Palestinian solution based on forming a national unity government that emerges from comprehensive national consensus including all parties, responsible for unifying national institutions in the occupied lands in the West Bank and the Strip, bearing responsibilities in adopting projects aimed at rebuilding what the barbaric invasion destroyed in the Strip, restoring life to our people there, and preparing for elections.

    3) Full emphasis on the necessity of a ceasefire and the permanent cessation of all acts of aggression, and the complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, as a condition for discussing prisoner exchange based on the of “all for all” principle, emptying the prisons, and stopping arrests against our people in the occupied lands.

    4) Developing and enhancing the Palestinian political system on democratic foundations, through general elections (presidential, legislative, and national council), according to a full proportional representation system, in free, fair, transparent, and democratic elections, with the participation of everyone, thereby rebuilding internal relations on the foundations and principles of national coalition and genuine national partnership.

The attendees salute the martyrs of our people in the occupied lands, especially to our people in the Gaza Strip, wish a speedy recovery to the wounded, and salute those who are steadfast despite the harshness and brutality of the aggression in the Gaza Strip. They extend a salute of struggle and admiration to the states and forces of resistance in our [Arab and Islamic] nation for their role in supporting our people and resistance.

They also salute our Arab peoples and the free people in the world who came out in their countries and capitals, condemning zionist terrorism and supporting our people’s right to defend themselves and their land and dignity. They call for more political, media, and financial support, establishing a global front against “israeli” terrorism and aggression, and the barbarism of the Atlantic, led by the United States, the number one enemy of the world’s peoples aspiring to freedom, independence, prosperity, and dignified living.

Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command

Source: Resistance News Network on Telegram

 

 

 

Pro-Palestinian protesters in the U.S. succeeded in simultaneously blocking the entrances of two of the largest airports in the country: LAX airport in Los Angeles, California, and JFK airport in New York.

The actions effectively disrupted operations, declaring no business as usual while a genocide and siege is ongoing. These protests highlight the effectiveness of strategic, direct action, showcasing how international allies can support Palestine.

Notably, the Los Angeles protest highlighted the ongoing displacement and genocide taking place in Palestine, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a combined 16 million people have been displaced and tens of thousands killed. Further, aircraft manufacturer Boeing’s role in these genocides was noted: Boeing has received hundreds of billions from U.S. government contracts to provide products to the U.S. military, as well as sells its weapons and technology to the zionist entity and Saudi Arabia.

In New York, about 30 arrests were documented, and about 40 were documented in Los Angeles.

Source: Resistance News Network on Telegram

Video and witness accounts recently published by Israeli media reveal new details about how Israeli forces killed their own civilians in Kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October.

Last week, Israel’s Channel 12 released previously unseen footage of an Israeli tank firing at a civilian home in the settlement just a few miles east of Gaza.

The new evidence shows that the Israeli commander on the scene, Brigadier General Barak Hiram, lied to a top Israeli journalist about what happened in the kibbutz that day after Palestinian resistance fighters launched a large-scale assault on Israeli military bases and settlements across the boundary from Gaza.

This amounts to an attempted cover-up by a senior military officer with media complicity.

But far from being held in any way accountable, Hiram is soon set to take up his new role as commander of the Gaza Division, the Israeli army brigade that was routed by Palestinian forces on 7 October.

Hiram resides in the settlement of Tekoa, built in violation of international law, near the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.

In an interview with Ilana Dayan, the host of Israeli Channel 12’s prestigious investigative program Uvda, on 26 October, Hiram gave a false account of the efforts to rescue civilians in Be’eri.

He also fabricated atrocity propaganda, claiming that Palestinian fighters had tied up and executed in cold blood 10 civilians in the kibbutz, eight of them children.

These sorts of lurid stories – amplified by Israeli leaders and relayed directly to the White House and world media – played a direct role in inciting Western governmental and public support for Israel’s genocidal response.

Hiram’s interview with Dayan was broadcast more than 10 days after Yasmin Porat gave her own testimony to Israeli state radio – a very different account from Hiram’s and one much less flattering to Israeli forces.

Porat was among 15 civilians held by Palestinian fighters in the house shot at by a tank seen in the new video, the home of Kibbutz Be’eri resident Pessi Cohen, who was also killed there.

In her 15 October interview with Israeli radio, which went viral after The Electronic Intifada translated it, Porat described how she and her partner Tal Katz had been at the Supernova rave when rocket fire from Gaza began early on the morning of Saturday, 7 October.

The couple got in their car and escaped to Be’eri, where they knocked on the door of kibbutz residents Adi and Hadas Dagan.

They hid with the Dagans until Palestinian fighters found them and took them to another nearby house where more civilians were being held by several dozen Hamas fighters.

Early reports mistakenly stated these events took place in the kibbutz dining hall.

At Pessi Cohen’s house, according to Porat, the Palestinian fighters treated the dozen-plus Israeli civilians “humanely,” and assured them they would not come to any further harm.

The Palestinians provided them with water and allowed them outside onto the lawn to escape the heat.

According to Porat, the fighters wanted Israeli authorities, who they thought would already be massing in the area, to grant them safe passage back to Gaza, where they would then release the civilians at the border.

The fighters’ demands were relayed to Porat via Suhayb al-Razim, a Palestinian minibus driver from occupied East Jerusalem, who they had also captured and forced to serve as their Hebrew translator.

Al-Razim had been taken captive earlier in the day while ferrying Israeli partygoers to and from the Supernova rave.

At the behest of the Palestinian fighters, Porat called the Israeli police so that the gunmen could negotiate their way out.

After numerous phone calls with the police, the hostages and their captors waited out the arrival of Israeli forces. When those forces finally pulled up to Pessi Cohen’s home, they began firing without warning, Porat said.

Killed by their own side

“We were outside and suddenly there was a volley of bullets at us from the [Israeli unit] YAMAM. We all started running to find cover,” Porat told Channel 12.

Amid the gun battle that ensued, one Palestinian commander, later identified as Hasan Hamduna, negotiated his own surrender with the Israeli forces. They instructed him to strip and come outside with Porat.

As they came out, Porat called on the Israelis to stop firing, which they did. Then she saw several kibbutz residents lying on the ground – people who, with one exception, would end up dead.

Asked if Israeli forces may have killed them, Porat replied, “undoubtedly.”

“They eliminated everyone, including the hostages. Because there was very, very heavy crossfire,” Porat said. “I was freed at approximately 5:30 pm. The fighting apparently ended at 8:30 pm. After insane crossfire, two tank shells were shot into the house.”

Among those killed by the tank shells were Adi Dagan and Porat’s partner, Tal Katz.

Hadas Dagan was injured but survived – the only Israeli aside from Porat to come out of the battle alive.

In another interview last month, Porat revealed that according to Hadas Dagan, the tank shelling had also killed Liel Hatsroni, a 12-year-old girl whom Israeli propagandists had been claiming was murdered by Palestinians.

Earlier this month, Hadas Dagan gave her first interview, confirming key parts of Porat’s account.

It is part of a half-hour-long Channel 12 report published on 9 December that also features Porat as well as family members of other Israeli captives killed in the same incident.

“It’s obvious that this incident presents a very heavy moral dilemma. I don’t want someone to take the story with the very difficult moral dilemma presented here and point an accusatory finger at the army,” Dagan says when identifying the immediate cause of her husband’s death. “To me it’s very clear that I, and Adi, were wounded from the shrapnel of the tank shell because it happened at that very moment.”

She describes the horrifying experience of watching her husband bleed out onto her from a hole in his neck several centimeters long until he stopped moving.

“I am mad, I am very mad. I am mad that we were abandoned, that we were betrayed, that we were alone, alone, alone, for so many hours,” she says. “Adi, to end his life like that, in that way, crunched up.”

“Suddenly I saw a tank”

A video shot near ground level shows a tank rolling through the kibbutz on 7 October, while aerial footage taken by an Israeli helicopter shows a tank firing a shell at Pessi Cohen’s house at 5:33 pm. Israeli fighters present described it as a warning shot.

That tank then suffered damage, possibly by an RPG rocket reportedly shot from inside the house by the Hamas fighters. “Afterwards, the tank was damaged and another tank arrived and it completed the mission,” Channel 12 reported.

In the 9 December report, Hadas Dagan corroborates Yasmin Porat’s account of extensive negotiations with the Palestinian fighters before Israeli forces arrived and began shooting.

Channel 12 played audio from phone calls made by Porat in which she, 12-year-old Israeli twins Liel and Yanai Hatsroni, and Palestinian commander Hasan Hamduna spoke to emergency services.

Hamduna tells the Israeli officer that he wants the army to ensure their passage to Gaza, claiming the Palestinians are holding some 50 Israelis.

As Porat has explained, Hamduna was deliberately exaggerating the number of Israelis being held, apparently in an attempt to make the police and army treat the situation more urgently.

After Hamduna surrendered with Porat, there is video of him in Israeli custody, naked, blindfolded, and handcuffed, calling on his comrades to surrender as well, telling them through a megaphone that the Israelis would treat them humanely and tend to any injuries.

While this attempt to renew negotiations was going on, there was nonstop shooting in both directions, Porat told Israeli state television Kan on 6 December.

Eventually, a second Israeli tank rolled up, likely commanded by armored battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Salman Habaka, who was killed weeks later in Gaza.

“I myself arrived in Be’eri and reported to Brigadier General Barak Hiram,” Habaka said in a video produced by the Israeli army in the days following the battle at Be’eri.

“The first thing that he demands of me: to fire a shell into the house.”

Asked by an Israeli social media channel to supply a story of how he “succeeded in saving a family,” Habaka offered none.

Instead, he said his mission was “to locate and destroy terrorists,” and if they were found indoors, “we destroyed the terrorists before we sent in the infantry to bring people out.”

The arrival of such weaponry immediately raised Yasmin Porat’s fears.

“Suddenly I saw a tank,” she told Kan. “I remember, I said to one of the police officers, ‘What, are you going to fire a tank shell? There are hostages outside.”

“And he says to me, ‘No it’s just so that the units are able to break into the house, they are bringing down the walls,’” Porat added.

But those were not the only heavy weapons Israeli forces used in Be’eri.

Mainstream media outlets worldwide have broadcast footage of the aftermath in the kibbutz, where entire streets of houses were reduced to rubble.

But none have been asking the obvious question: How could Hamas fighters armed only with AK-47 assault rifles and a few RPGs have done such extensive damage?

The answer, of course, is that they didn’t do so alone. Israeli state television has reported that in addition to tanks, Israeli forces utilized combat helicopters in their counter-strike to reconquer Be’eri.

Two veterans of the Israeli military’s elite tactical rescue squad Unit 669, who were volunteer rescuers on 7 October, told Kan earlier this month what they witnessed in Be’eri.

“This was the situation: You’re sitting in a kibbutz in the state of Israel where we take the kids bike riding on weekends. Every second a missile falls on you. Every minute,” says Erez Tidhar, one of the volunteers. “Suddenly you see a missile from a helicopter that shoots into the kibbutz.”

“An IDF helicopter firing into an Israeli kibbutz,” Tidhar adds in consternation, “and then you see a tank rolling down the roads of the kibbutz, fire the cannon, and shoot a shell into a house. These are things you can’t quite comprehend.”

Tidhar, notably, is the head of Israel’s national cybersecurity directorate.

Israel’s American-built Apache helicopters were already known to have been deployed in large numbers across the region on 7 October, firing enormous quantities of devastating Hellfire missiles and exploding cannon shells, killing Palestinians and Israeli civilians alike.

This fierce firepower burned to death hundreds of people so completely that Israeli authorities could not tell for weeks if they were Palestinian fighters or Israeli civilians.

The confusion led to Israel reducing its death toll to 1,200 on 10 November, with senior Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev admitting that 200 of the dead it had originally counted as Israelis had actually been Palestinian fighters.

“Authorization to shoot”

But this is not how Barak Hiram, the brigadier general who was on the scene, describes events in Be’eri.

Hiram portrays himself as heroically stepping into a chaotic situation, assuming command, bravely battling terrorists and rescuing civilian hostages.

He also tells atrocity tales exposed as lies by the accounts of the two survivors, Yasmin Porat and Hadas Dagan.

“Saturday morning, when we understood there was an invasion happening in the area around Gaza, many soldiers and former soldiers from around Israel came together to defeat the terrorists and save Israeli families in their homes,” Hiram told Israel’s i24News on 11 October.

Two weeks later, he expanded on his version in his 26 October interview with Channel 12’s Ilana Dayan.

“At a certain point Nissim Hazan also arrived, who was a brigade commander in my division,” Hiram explains.

Like Hiram, Hazan also resides in a settlement in the occupied West Bank

“He arrived as a tank commander on a single tank that he managed to put into use after it was damaged, and he was our first tank inside the settlement,” Hiram says.

“And I gave him authorization to shoot mortars into structures to simply stop the terrorists,” Hiram adds.

Speaking about the hostage situation, Hiram says that while an Israeli commando unit known as YAMAM was “purifying” one of the neighborhoods, “one of the citizens manages to flee from the buildings.”

This appears to be a reference to Porat’s negotiated exit from the Cohen house with Palestinian fighter Hasan Hamduna.

“And it creates a kind of dynamic or feeling that the terrorists are barricaded there inside the block [of houses] might be ready to talk or something like that,” Hiram recalls.

A special negotiations team arrived on the scene and tried to communicate with the fighters inside, according to Hiram.

Hiram’s distortions and lies

Up to this point, Hiram’s account is more or less congruent with Porat’s but then, with Ilana Dayan’s complicity, it spirals into distortion and outright fiction.

“Do they answer?” Dayan asks regarding the efforts at negotiation. “They answer us with an RPG rocket,” Hiram says.

“At this stage I authorize the YAMAM force commander there to burst inside and to try to save the citizens trapped in those buildings,” Hiram claims.

“So the YAMAM force wages a truly heroic battle there, and charges inside,” Dayan embellishes. “Does any hope remain that there are still hostages that can be saved?”

“I think in that block there were about 20 citizens and I think the YAMAM force managed to save about four of them,” Hiram asserts.

“All the rest were murdered,” Dayan says.

“All the rest were murdered in cold blood,” Hiram replies. “And there we found eight children tied together and shot, a couple, husband and wife, tied together and shot.”

Deadly lies heard in Washington

Hiram’s story is likely the source of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertions, made directly to US President Joe Biden in the immediate aftermath, that “They took dozens of children, bound them up, burned them and executed them.”

Israeli newspaper Haaretz debunked the claim, reporting early this month that “There is no evidence that children from several families were murdered together.”

This is also true for the families held hostage at the home of Pessi Cohen, as confirmed by the only captives to leave it alive.

Hadas Dagan has never claimed that hostages were tied up and Yasmin Porat noted in a 12 October interview with Channel 12 that her partner Tal Katz, also killed by the final tank shelling, was the only one in their group of 15 hostages whose hands had been tied up by the Hamas fighters.

Dagan has never claimed there were executions and Porat has insisted that there were none.

In the same 12 October interview, Porat said that although the Palestinian fighters all had loaded weapons, she never saw them shoot captives or threaten them with their guns.

“They did not abuse us. They treated us very humanely,” Porat said in her now famous radio interview three days later with Kan.

“By that I mean they guard us. They give us something to drink here and there. When they see we are nervous, they calm us down,” she added. “It was very frightening but no one treated us violently. Luckily nothing happened to me like what I heard in the media.”

Furthermore, neither Porat nor Dagan ever reported, nor has any video emerged, of Israeli commandos storming the house in an attempt to save captives.

And contrary to Hiram’s portrayal, there had been negotiations – as Porat described.

Days after Channel 12 published its interview with Hiram, Channel 13 broadcast recordings of calls to the emergency services in which the Palestinian fighters sought to negotiate their safe passage back to Gaza.

An account of events at Be’eri published in The New York Times on 22 December also portrays Hiram as being in a hurry to use force, even when other officers thought negotiations might produce better results.

“As the dusk approached, the SWAT [commando] commander and General Hiram began to argue,” the Times reports. “The SWAT commander thought more kidnappers might surrender. The general wanted the situation resolved by nightfall.”

“Minutes later, the militants launched a rocket-propelled grenade, according to the general and other witnesses,” the newspaper states.

“The negotiations are over,” Hiram recalled telling the tank commander, according to the Times. “Break in, even at the cost of civilian casualties.”

Instead of saving four people as he claimed to Ilana Dayan, with his order to shoot tank shells at the house, Hiram ensured that everyone on the battlefield save for Hadas Dagan was killed and that at least three others – Liel Hatsroni, her aunt and guardian Ayala Hatsroni and Suhayb al-Razim – were almost totally incinerated on the spot.

Relatives call for investigation

Relatives of those killed in Be’eri are asking questions about what happened to their loved ones, and they are taking note of Hiram’s lies.

“We collect bits and pieces of information, no one talks to us in an orderly manner,” says Naama Ben Ami, whose mother Hava was killed in Be’eri. “We don’t really know what happened here.”

Ben Ami and other relatives were interviewed amid the ruins of Be’eri, in the same 9 December Channel 12 report in which Hadas Dagan spoke out for the first time.

“I think there are a lot of disturbing operational questions here,” says Omri Shifroni, nephew of Ayala Hatsroni and cousin of the 12-year-old twins she raised, Liel and Yanai Hatsroni, all of whom perished in the Be’eri bloodbath.

“How did they get here? When did they open fire, who fired? I do not know whose shooting killed them,” Shifroni says.

He then refers directly to Hiram’s claims made in the interview with Dayan.

“He had no idea!” Shifroni says of the brigadier general. “Even when he spoke, and this was two weeks after [the events of 7 October], he had no idea what happened here. No clue – because it was not the truth.”

“This is something that has to be investigated,” says Sharon Cohen, the daughter-in-law of Pessi Cohen. “It must be.”

They were speaking specifically about their own kin, but what occurred at Kibbutz Be’eri was no singular incident of Israel killing its own people, whether through reckless incompetence or by design.

The truth leaks out

Until now, the truth has been leaking out only in dribs and drabs.

In November, an Israeli police source admitted that military helicopters shot at civilians at the Supernova rave – the desert dance party near Be’eri that Yasmin Porat and her partner had attended.

Nof Erez, an Israeli air force colonel, has even gone as far as to call the Israeli response to 7 October a “mass Hannibal” – an application on a wide scale of Israel’s military doctrine that allows the deliberate killing of its own people rather than permitting them to be taken captive.

That same month, Israel revealed that hundreds of unrecognizably burned bodies it thought were its own civilians were actually Hamas fighters – a clear admission of indiscriminate fire on a massive scale.

Earlier this month, the Israeli military admitted to an “immense” quantity of so-called friendly fire incidents on 7 October but asserted that it would not be “morally sound” to investigate them, as Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

Israel has moreover faced huge international embarrassment and anger at home after its army admitted to killing three Israeli prisoners who had managed to get away from their captors in Gaza.

The Palestinian “monster”

While the killing of Israeli civilians – men and women, young and old – by Palestinian fighters on 7 October has been widely reported, the killing of Israeli civilians by Israeli forces on the same day is being covered up by the Israeli state.

Meanwhile, Israel’s media and its sympathizers abroad blast unverified claims and lies at full volume in order to distract from or justify the genocide in Gaza.

These include notorious lies about Jewish babies being executed and hung from a laundry line, beheaded, and even cooked in an oven.

But in an Israel more hyped up than ever to annihilate Palestinians, there are few voices calling for any real accountability about what happened on and after 7 October.

Take Ilana Dayan for instance.

As one of Israel’s premier “investigative” reporters, she has tried to clear Barak Hiram of culpability in the Be’eri tank shelling that killed Israeli citizens by claiming, “When the news reports on a hostage incident at Be’eri, in actuality, sadly, there were no hostages.”

Here’s how she explained what happened on that day in a recent episode of the Unholy podcast, hosted by Channel 12’s Yonit Levy and The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland: “There’s a monster that grew up on the other side of the fence, on the other side of the border.”

While happy to repeat exaggerations and fictions, Dayan expressed no interest whatsoever in what Israel has been doing for over 75 years to Palestinians across the country, and especially in Gaza, that would lead them to launch an armed attack against Israel at any scale.

When asked if Israelis would one day have to reckon with the horrifying scale of death, suffering and devastation their army is inflicting on civilians in Gaza, Dayan pushed back indignantly.

“Is it possible to understand that a heartbroken nation is too broken to have a reservoir of empathy for the other, for the enemy?” Dayan asked. “What was Hamas expecting when they launched this brutal, sadistic, terrible, horrific atrocity? What were they expecting?”

And asked whether Israelis should be shown that reality, Dayan responded: “We are not foreign reporters, we are Israeli reporters. This is not the time for us to weigh both sides.”

That might explain why Dayan was willing to carry water for Barak Hiram and buttress his fictional account of the battle at Be’eri, burying the truth about how Israel killed its own citizens there.

It does not, however, explain why international media, organizations, and governments, including the UN, continue to accept Israel’s lies and have failed to call for credible, independent investigations into what really happened on 7 October.

The price of this complicity is being paid by the people of Gaza.

Ali Abunimah is executive director of The Electronic Intifada.

David Sheen is the author of Kahanism and American Politics: The Democratic Party’s Decades-Long Courtship of Racist Fanatics.

Source: Electronic Intifada

Presentation given at the Socialist Unity Party national plenum on Dec. 16, 2023.

After the U.S. killed the U.N. Security Council resolution for a ceasefire on Dec. 8 — and today delayed another vote of the Security Council demanding an immediate ceasefire — Washington continues to pour gas on the fires in Gaza.

Bypassing Congress, the State Department sent 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel on the same day. The war crimes, with more than 20,000 Palestinians killed — 40% children, including so many babies — precede that transfer to Israel, assisting even more in the genocide.

“It’s just awful,” said one of the U.S. embassy representatives in Cairo, Egypt, about the killing going on in Gaza. With a bowed head with apparent frustration at their supposed inability to stop the killing in Gaza, the embassy representatives told our U.S. delegation of World Conscience Convoy participants nothing of value.

With the help of an Egyptian lawyer, we were able to have a meeting with the U.S. embassy. When we pressed to get answers about why the U.S. sent the massive amount of weapons that Israel received before and after Oct. 7, they said the U.S. uses weapons to get leverage to persuade Israel not to take things too far.

A five-year-old could come up with a better answer. And, even at an early stage of development, the child would most likely have a better sense of humanity regarding the massacre of children.

We went to the meeting to ask the U.S. to use its influence with the Egyptian government, which refuses to allow the World Conscience Convoy (organized by the Egyptian Journalist‘s Syndicate) to deliver humanitarian aid and journalists to Gaza and to help stop the genocide. 

We told them, but they already knew, that there were just two days during the ceasefire “pause” to get humanitarian aid, journalists, and medical care into Gaza. Despite the ongoing genocide, as a Jewish delegation member explained and a mother and preschool teacher and others laid out, we were told the U.S. has no influence with the Egyptian government, and we were again told the U.S. uses the weapons for “leverage.”

After the U.S. veto of the U.N. Security Council resolution for an immediate ceasefire, one Saudi official said, “Leverage has failed.” 

International delegates in the World Conscience Convoy decided that our only chance to get the convoy through (or failing that, to at least make visible the complicity in war crimes by both Egypt and imperialist countries led by the U.S.) was to petition the Ministry of Foreign Affairs once again to allow a permit for passage to Gaza. We preceded the presentation of the permit request with the unfurling of a banner in front of the building reading: “From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free.”

The over 30-hour detention in Egypt that this writer and three other delegates – from France, Australia, and Argentina – received made it clear that the government would not tolerate being embarrassed about their complicity. We were immediately detained.

Although our embassies never visited us after being made aware that we were being detained, Egyptian lawyers came to our rescue, and folks from back home in our respective countries were able to put pressure on them and the Egyptian government.

After 30 hours of no sleep, no bed, and continuous glaring lights, we were finally deported.

Before our detention, we got a good understanding of the political climate in a meeting with journalists at the Egyptian Journalist‘s Syndicate building. In Egypt, the people and even the media and corporate media were united in their rage against the Gaza genocide. Even the Egyptian National Security police let us know they agreed with what we were doing but had to listen to the “higher-ups.” This is why President Abdel Fattah el-Sisii has to hide his complicity in the economic cooperation with the Zionist regime. 

One common interest of the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt in Gaza and the West Bank was the discovery of over 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil, which the Zionist regime claimed it owned in 2008, to the detriment of Palestinians.

In September, the U.S. held a meeting in India pushing the Indian Middle-East Corridor (IMEC) with cooperation between Saudi Arabia, India, and the U.S., with invites to Jordan. This was designed to counter China’s mutually beneficial Belt and Road Initiative and alternatives to the IMF and World Bank. 

The destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline by the U.S. and the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine helped the IMEC initiative. An alternative hydrogen pipeline — to replace the natural gas that Russia had provided to Europe — from India to Saudi Arabia to Jordan to Haifa in occupied Palestine, close to the West Bank and Gaza, is proposed as part of IMEC.

According to a statement by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is one of the Palestinian organizations in Gaza that were part of the action with Hamas on Oct. 7, the IMEC agreements were targeted.

“The Al-Aqsa Flood operation was launched only after all diplomatic means had been exhausted. It was a specific confrontation due to the racist policy implemented by the Israeli occupation government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. It was a move to prevent the Arab regimes from signing peace agreements with Israel and derail American attempts to build economic blocs in the region to besiege China, Iran, and Russia – the most recent of which is the India-Middle East-Europe ‘corridor.’”

The pipeline would then go to Greece to supply Europe.

It is also interesting that before Oct. 7, the U.N. reported record-breaking violent settler attacks against Palestinians in Gaza and that Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu presented a new map of Israel that eliminated Palestine.

A corporate and capitalist government think-tank, APCO, sums up the plan goals and initiatives in its advisory work around IMEC:

Sept. 22 — The recent G20 summit in New Delhi witnessed the launch of a $20 billion India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC), an ambitious multi-pronged network aiming to connect goods and services between Europe and Asia — via the Middle East — more sustainably and efficiently. G20 countries involved in this initiative will hold a follow-up meeting to develop an action plan with defined timetables for implementation.

Alongside the practical economic and infrastructure benefits for the involved regions, IMEC aims to strengthen United States and EU leadership based on multilateral cooperation and prosperity across Eurasia and boost global supply chain solutions. Within this context, the G20-backed corridor seeks to constitute a geopolitical counterweight to China and its intercontinental Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) while checking Russia’s interconnectivity aspirations.

Summary and opportunities

IMEC’s transport competent envisions a combined maritime-overland network that circumvents the existing maritime route via the Suez Canal: beginning with sea lanes connecting western India to the UAE, a rail network linking the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel, and culminating in a maritime route from Haifa to several European ports. The transport section is to be culminated by fiber-optic cables and a hydrogen pipeline spanning the 5,000-km route. In addition, the G20 envisions three complementary commercial-industrial corridors to IMEC in the fields of renewable energy, food security and the digital economy. …

Countering Russia and the Ukraine war impact

IMEC also serves to check Russian influence and overcome large-scale supply chain and logistics disruptions brought on by the invasion of Ukraine. As Europe eyes energy replacements for Russian gas and Middle Eastern countries seek to diversify food sources away from the Ukrainian-Russian conflict zone, IMEC has the potential to provide long-lasting remedies to these challenges. The G20-backed corridor also targets Russia’s proposed International North-South Transport Corridor to connect European markets to India via Iran, weakening the latter project’s viability and helping to encourage the maintenance of US-led international sanctions regimes against Moscow and Tehran.

The deal, however, was stalled after Oct 7.

Presentation given at the Socialist Unity Party national plenum on Dec. 16, 2023.

We have just learned that the Health Care workers 1199 SEIU has called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to allow for urgent relief amid the destruction of health and other infrastructure. 

A deep shift is going on in the organized labor movement, shown by the emerging support for Palestine. It’s a turn away from what some call  “business unionism,” a narrow struggle for a few crumbs off the bosses’ table. There is a new class consciousness rising — international solidarity.

The United Auto Workers’ official call for a ceasefire is awesome. They are creating a “Divestment and Just Transition” study group on the history and the union’s economic ties to the conflict. Union leaders thanked all the rank-and-file members who made this happen. 

Truly, the UAW’s position was initiated by the rank and file: Black, people of color, and gender-oppressed auto workers in the coastal regions, along with Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska. The auto workers have been empowered by last summer’s victorious strike wave.  

Palestine workers call for support

On Oct. 16, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions  (PGFTU) issued an urgent call for action against governments, like the U.S., that are arming Israel. 

Unions have been taking action, often in opposition to their own governments. The postal workers, auto workers and the National Writers Union are leading the U.S. labor movement. A Starbucks Workers United leaflet read: “We Stand with Palestine.”  

The UAW, UE, and UFCW 3000 initiated an online petition calling for an immediate ceasefire and end to the siege of Gaza. 

It has been signed by some 3,200 unions, union locals, and sections of unions, including the CWA • IBEW • SEIU • Teamsters • AFSCME • OPEIU • Unite Here • USW •  AFT and Education Unions more than a dozen states •  Amazon Labor Union  • Austin and San Antonio AFL-CIO Central Labor Councils  • Coalition of Labor Union Women  • Painters, Roofers • NJ State Industrial Union Council • Pacific Media Workers •  Philadelphia Labor for Black Lives Coalition • Pride at Work • Restaurant Workers United • Unemployed Workers United • Western Massachusetts (AFL-CIO). More unions are joining this list by the hour.

In the beginning of November, the Ports of Oakland and Tacoma were blockaded by protesters who delayed the departure of a U.S. military vessel after merchant marine workers told organizers the ship’s cargo of weapons was destined for Israel. In New Orleans, where Healthcare Workers demand a ceasefire, workers groups are organizing to Stop Helping Israel’s Ports – NOSHIP.

The longshore union ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco unanimously passed a resolution in solidarity with Palestine. They said: “The U.N. calls Gaza an ‘open-air prison’ of 2.2 million Palestinians. … It is no surprise that there would inevitably be a rebellion.” The Local 10 resolution was presented to the Oakland and San Francisco City Councils. 

The Inland Boatmen’s Union in San Francisco issued a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire as well as the delivery of life-saving aid.  

ZIM, one of the world’s largest shipping lines, is carrying military supplies to Israel. Workers in Palestine see ZIM as a strategic target. On Nov. 17 in Norfolk, Virginia, a demonstration at the ZIM headquarters organized by the Southern Workers Assembly shut down ZIM.

As reported on Labor Video, thousands of labor unionists from around Northern California rallied in Oakland on Dec. 16 to oppose the genocide in Gaza. It was endorsed by SEIU 1021 which has over 50,000 members, AFSCME 3299, OEA, UESF, SEIU 1021, ILWU Local 10, Inlandboatmen’s Union SF Region-ILWU, UNITE HERE Local 2, IFPTE Local 21, CWA NewsGuild Pacific Media Workers Guild, Stanford Graduate Workers, Trader Joes United, IWW Bay Area, IWW 460-650 – Ecology Center.

A San Francisco labor group rallied on Dec. 14 in front of Google offices to stop Google’s AI support for the Zionist apartheid regime. Google has the $1.2 billion Nimbus contract with the Israeli military. The workers also reported that Google is targeting their Muslim workers who challenge genocide.

Around the world

All around the world, the union movement has been responding with solidarity actions to block the arming of the Zionist entity.

Belgian, Italian, Spanish, and French unions called on their members to refuse to handle arms shipments. 

In the Port of Melbourne, Trade Unionists for Palestine are blocking ZIM. The red, gold, and black flags of the Indigenous peoples of Australia are seen on the picket line.

The Liverpool dock workers are blocking the shipment of war materiel. They held a community meeting to talk about Gaza and the West Bank. 

United Tech & Allied Workers of Britain called for the “international labor movement to end all complicity and take concrete action against arms supplies to Israel.”

British health workers, teachers, hospitality workers, academics, artists, and more — members of some eight union federations  — set up a picket line to prevent deliveries to BAE Systems, England’s largest weapons firm, under a banner that read “Workers for a Free Palestine.”

The Japanese National Railway Union, Dora Chiba, has pledged to fight their government’s policy of arming the Zionist military. 

Although not reported as much here, similar actions are occurring all over the world. The  Brazilian trade union federation, representing more than 7.4 million workers, pledged unwavering support for Palestine. The Canadian Union of Public Employees called for the “end of arms sales to Israel.” In Colombia, the miners’ union is demanding a suspension of the supply of all minerals and fuels. The largest Polish confederation of trade unions is calling for an end to military cooperation with Israel.

India’s twelve union federations, representing one hundred million workers, are strongly opposing talks to send one hundred thousand construction workers to replace the Palestinian workers whose work permits Israel has canceled. 

The Central Trade Union Council of India, representing more than 600,000 workers, is calling for a boycott of arms shipments. 

Workers in Palestine, the group formed by Palestinian unions, has created a number of online resources, including a guidance sheet for unions on building solidarity with Palestine, a companion guide for community activists, and a model motion.

The comprehensive “Who Arms Israel?” toolkit offers guidance for action and suggests locations. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems, Leonardo, and Raytheon all provide arms crucial to the Israeli military.

Internationally, many global federations like that of the Transport Workers have pledged to support the Palestinian workers’ struggle for justice, dignity, and peace.