The International League of Peoples’ Struggle stands united in unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. The Palestinian people are absolutely united in their aspiration to bring an end to the Zionist occupation and to finally live in a free and democratic Palestine.

The actions by the Zionist state are nothing short of a genocide.  Since the latest attacks against Gaza began, over 3,000 have been killed in indiscriminate airstrikes, including at least 500 getting medical treatment and taking refuge in a hospital.  A complete blockade has deliberately cut Gaza off from food, water, fuel and electricity, leaving the people starving and with a medical system on the brink of collapse with over 10,000 injuries and rising.  Palestinian health officials cannot keep up with carrying away the dead bodies that lie unattended throughout the strip, leading to the high risk of a disease outbreak amongst the population.  Zionist forces have also demanded that 2.3 million Gazans evacuate to the south to make way for their ground invasion and likely attempt to re-occupy the strip while killing even civilians obeying this order.  Airstrikes have even hit the southern border between Gaza and Egypt, the only way for Palestinians to leave the strip if they want, leaving desperately needed humanitarian aid packages sitting at the border unable to enter.  In addition to airstrikes, the Zionists have even used internationally banned weapons such as white phosphorus gas.  Included is the continued violence by soldiers and armed settlers which has killed over 70 in the past 11 days alone.

Indeed, the Zionist government may have declared war on October 7th, but the previous 75 years of occupation and ethnic cleansing policies since the Nakba have been a never-ending war against the Palestinian people.  What we see now is merely a heightened general offensive by Zionism within Palestine itself with continuing aggression against neighboring rival countries.

The Zionists may have openly declared war this time, but that’s only because of the Palestinian resistance’s decision to unite in struggle to take up arms against the US-backed occupation state and its “state-of-the-art” military.  For over 75 years, the Palestinian people have used every option they’ve had against the occupation of their land, to no avail.  The international governance system has allowed the occupation to become normalized with no end in sight.  The people have chosen to take the courageous path of united coordination in armed resistance, bravely tearing up the Zionist-imposed border fence of Gaza and launching coordinated strikes in air, land and sea that inspired peoples’ movements the world over to see a united people taking the military might of an imperialist satellite state off guard.

The Palestinian resistance is a beacon to our resistance!  By this, we mean that this strike against a running dog of US imperialism is a move that weakens US imperialism as a whole.  The global imperialist system is entering into a new stage of multipolar turmoil, from the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine, to the build up to war in Asia-Pacific, to the upsurge of peoples’ movements for national self-determination in Latin America and Africa, and of the continued advance of armed resistance movements in the Philippines, India, Kurdistan, West Papua and of course Palestine.  The Palestinian resistance gives inspiration to all people struggling in this context for national and social liberation, and therefore we must support their resistance as if it was our own.

The ILPS supports all resistance fighters regardless of organizational affiliation – now is the time to unite!

We also condemn the attacks on Palestinian and Palestine solidarity organizations around the world on behalf of the US and Zionist forces.  We are witnessing an unprecedented outlawing of democratic organizations and bans on free speech when it comes to the Palestinian cause while pro-Zionist slogans are given full support, even within the so-called “democratic” liberal states of North America and Europe.  Now is the time to defend peoples’ struggle in all its forms.

The ILPS calls on its members to take actions worldwide outside of Israeli, US and European embassies to condemn the genocide taking place in Gaza.  We also encourage members to demand of their own governments official condemnation and to push for the unconditional end of the blockade, assault and genocide of Gaza, as well as the end of all military aid to the Zionist state, especially from the US.

All organizations are encouraged to hold educational sessions on the history and current situation of the US-Zionist occupation and resistance of Palestine.  Ongoing actions in support of the Palestinian resistance must be maintained worldwide, especially amidst the crackdown and banning of anti-Zionist organizations.  We must assert that activism and resistance of any form is not terrorism.

From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!
Palestinian resistance is a beacon to our resistance!
Long live international Solidarity!

 

Signed:

Len Cooper
ILPS Chairperson
20 October 2023

Oct. 18: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) confirmed today that the occupation government and its army committed the crime of bombing the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital, knowing in advance that it was impossible for any humane person to justify it or accept it, but had planned in advance a series of similar crimes and prepared the tools of justification, analysis, and fabrication.

The Front said: “Since yesterday, we have faced another crime besides the massacre, which is the enemy’s attempt to attribute the horrific massacre it committed to the Palestinians and their resistance.”

PFLP pointed out that “the enemy’s intention was clear in targeting hospitals from the beginning of the aggression. It had previously attacked the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital, Al-Durrah Children’s Hospital, and the Indonesian Hospital, and threatened Al-Awda Hospital, Al-Quds Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital, and the Kuwaiti Hospital as part of its comprehensive war on hospitals, and followed its brutal massacre at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital with another bombing of the European Hospital.”

The Front denounced the reluctance of some international bodies to discuss the number of conflicting lies that occupation spokesmen competed to present and withdraw in succession after they were refuted by conclusive evidence from dozens of institutions concerned with verification around the world, not only in Palestine.

The Front also confirmed that the German chancellor and the U.S. war criminal Joe Biden are complete partners in killing us, along with all those governments and parties that gave cover to the aggression or refused to condemn it.

The Front called on the masses of the Arab nation, the resistance and its supporters, and the friends of Palestine around the world to punish the Zionist enemy for this heinous crime.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Information Department

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

Source: PFLP

Deputy Secretary-General of the Popular Front: The “Al-Aqsa Flood” surprised the enemy and inflicted a humiliating loss on it

Oct. 17: The Deputy Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Comrade Jamil Mezher, affirmed tonight that “our Palestinian people are experiencing the heroic epic (Al-Aqsa Flood) that was inaugurated by a group of heroic resistance fighters who, in a few hours, in a surprise operation, managed to inflict a humiliating loss on the enemy, during which their security strategy was destroyed.” 

Comrade Jamil Mezher stressed, through a recorded speech broadcast on Al-Mayadeen satellite channel, that “the Zionist enemy is committing a heinous massacre in the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza City [alternatively known as Al-Maamadani Hospital], which claimed the lives of hundreds of martyrs, children, women and the elderly, in an attempt by this enemy to subjugate our people and impose surrender on them, and displacement under bombing fire.

“We say to this criminal enemy: No matter how many bloody massacres are committed, our people will not leave, but will remain steadfast on their land and will not leave it, no matter how heavy the sacrifices are.”

Mezher pointed out, “These crimes cannot cover up the defeat of the enemy; the shame that befell its soldiers and its security system, and in the face of this madness and Zionist crime, it has become necessary to take urgent action to save our people who are being subjected to a war of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

In response to this hideous massacre, Comrade Mezher called on “the masses of our people in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the territories of 1948 for a comprehensive uprising in the face of the occupation and the herds of settlers,” while he called on “the Arab leaders for a common position to boycott the U.S. administration, expel its military bases, and close its embassies in the region.”

Comrade Deputy Secretary-General stressed the necessity of “expelling the enemy state’s ambassadors and withdrawing the Arab ambassadors from the state of the Zionist entity,” calling on “the Arab masses to take mass action in the squares and streets and besiege the U.S. and Zionist embassies in their countries.”

Mezher also called on “the free forces in solidarity with the Palestinian people around the world to escalate their struggle against the Zionist enemy, the U.S. administration, and the colonial powers in Europe that are partners in this aggression against our people.”

At the end of his speech, Comrade Jamil Mezher addressed all of the people by saying: “Our people and our proud, heroic people: Despite the bombing, destruction, and war of extermination practiced by the enemy against our people, and despite the American and Western partnership, our people and our resistance are fine, they are performing heroically, they will not surrender, and they will not raise the white flag.

“With all certainty, the resistance of our people will pave the way to a decisive and inevitable victory over this criminal and defeated Zionist entity. The struggle continues, and victory will inevitably belong to the Palestinian people and their valiant resistance.”

Translated by Melinda Butterfield 

Source: PFLP

 

On October 13, 2023, the Chicago City Council held a meeting to vote on a “Resolution in Solidarity with Israel.” Gabriel Miller was one of the voices who spoke up against the double standard that is being held in favor of Israel and against Palestine.

In the end, Chicago City Council passed the pro-Israel resolution, despite the protests of people like Gabriel.

Gabriel Miller:

I would like to add my voice to the court here today in opposition to this ridiculous, ridiculous resolution. At a time when the rest of the world is condemning Israel for committing war crime after war crime, Chicago is fiddling around on whether to condemn Hamas. By doing so, Chicago will be doing its part in enabling the genocide of Palestinians, and this resolution acts like it’s on the side of innocent civilians.

So, in that case, I’d like to add, are you considering a resolution for condemning Israel for using white phosphorous against a civilian population? Are you considering condemning Israel for its planned war crime of forced removal of one million Palestinians from Gaza? Are you going to condemn them for cutting off food, water, and electricity to Gaza (another war crime called Selective Punishment)? Did it ever cross your mind to ever condemn Israel when they assassinated Palestinian journalist Shereen Abu Akleh in broad daylight or when they brutalized the people carrying her coffin peacefully? Or when Israeli snipers killed innocent people protesters throughout the March of Return? Did the people in the office before you ever consider condemning Israel at any point since its inception when it crams a country full of people into a 60-mile corner of its own country, creating the largest concentration camp in history, the largest open-air prison in the world?

The answer is a resounding NO. You never considered it, nor did your ancestors. But unfortunately for you, times have changed. The world is increasingly aware of the crimes of Israel and increasingly aware of the framework of politicians who enable their continued apartheid by resolutions such as these. And in a city like Chicago, with a majority Black and Brown people who have experienced the apartheid-like conditions of oppression in the United States, a generation of young people have emerged to understand immediately we have everything in common with the Palestinian people and nothing in common with the brutal Zionists under who they suffer.

A generation of people who are not surprised when we found out that our politicians, up to our president, spread lies about 40 babies being beheaded in order to rationalize genocide. We’re only surprised that they’re forced to walk those lies back, but of course, the damage is done. People are still spewing the debunked lies about rape and massacre of babies even here in this very meeting, when there is endless evidence of Israel having killed over 500 babies in the last 48 hours alone, having dropped more bombs in 24 hours than the US dropped on Afghanistan in one year.

And finally, let it be known that condemning the attack as the actions of some fringe group misses the point of what is actually going on. The attacks were carried out by a broad coalition of groups from every section of Palestinian society, not just a mosque. That coalition represents a people determined to attain freedom at any cost, and they have arrived at this point in the face of a broad coalition of right-wing Zionists and their supporters, like those in the city council who would start a meeting with a prayer calling for their attempts at freedom, a second Holocaust, were so silent you could hear a rat piss on cotton, when innocent, peaceful Palestinians are annihilated day in and day out, like the Native Americans of this country. If it were another time, these same people would be condemning Africans for rebelling against their slave masters and slavery, such as Nat Turner or the Haitian Revolution.

Thank you.

The survivor of the initial attack by the Gaza resistance also says Palestinian fighters treated their captives ‘humanely’ before the arrival of the army

A survivor from the Palestinian resistance offensive on Israeli settlements on 7 October says the Israeli army is “undoubtedly” responsible for killing many of their civilians.

“They eliminated everyone, including the hostages, because there was very, very heavy crossfire,” 44-year-old mother of three Yasmin Porat told the Haboker Hazeh radio program on Israeli Kan radio last week.

When the interviewer asked if Israeli troops were responsible for civilian deaths, Porat said, “Undoubtedly.” Her interview has been scrubbed from the online version of Haboker Hazeh and the Kan website; however, Electronic Intifada procured a copy and translated it from Hebrew.

“There are five or six hostages lying on the ground outside. Just like sheep to the slaughter, between the shooting of our commandos and the terrorists,” Porat describes.

Porat says that, before the arrival of Israeli troops, she and other civilians had been held by the Palestinians “for several hours” and treated “humanely.”

“They did not abuse us. They treated us very humanely,” Porat said, adding, “They give us something to drink here and there. When they see we are nervous, they calm us down. It was very frightening, but no one treated us violently.”

She recalled one Palestinian fighter who spoke Hebrew saying: “Look at me well, were not going to kill you. We want to take you to Gaza. We are not going to kill you. So be calm, you’re not going to die.”

“I was calm because I knew nothing would happen to me,” she added.

Furthermore, during a lengthy interview on Israel’s Channel 12, Porat speaks of intense gunfire after Israeli forces arrived and elaborates that, although the resistance fighters were heavily armed, she never saw them shoot captives or threaten them with their guns.

She also highlights that the Israeli army announced their arrival at the settlement “with a hail of gunfire,” catching the resistance fighters and their captives by surprise.

Her account echoes that of another Israeli settler who spoke with Channel 12 last week about her experience as a prisoner of war (POW) of Hamas.

The accounts from survivors stand in stark contrast to the widespread claims found in western media outlets that say Hamas forces did everything from “beheading babies” to torturing and raping settlers.

Salah al-Aruri, Deputy Head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, last week addressed claims that resistance fighters were ordered to deliberately kill as many Israeli settlers as possible, telling Al Jazeera TV that fighters from the Qassam Brigades – the military wing of Hamas – were “under strict protocol to not harm civilians.”

He also said that after Israel’s Gaza division disintegrated in the face of the Gaza factions, others rushed the border, “causing chaos.” Furthermore, he notes that some of the deaths of Israeli settlers are a result of the so-called ‘Hannibal Directive,’ which is a protocol that allows Israeli soldiers to use overwhelming force to kill one of their own captured soldiers rather than allow them to be taken, prisoner.

“We are certain that young men [fighters] were bombed along with the prisoners who were with them,” Aruri said last week.

According to the Israeli army, at least 199 settlers were taken as POWs by the Palestinian resistance. The Israeli death toll from Operation Al-Aqsa Flood stands at over 1,300.

Source

An Israeli woman who survived the Hamas assault on settlements near the Gaza boundary on 7 October says Israeli civilians were “undoubtedly” killed by their own security forces.

It happened when Israeli forces engaged in fierce gun battles with Palestinian fighters in Kibbutz Be’eri and fired indiscriminately at both the fighters and their Israeli prisoners.

“They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she told Israeli radio. “There was very, very heavy crossfire” and even tank shelling.

The woman, 44-year-old mother of three Yasmin Porat, said that prior to that, she and other civilians had been held by the Palestinians for several hours and treated “humanely.” She had fled the nearby “Nova” rave.

A recording of her interview, from the radio program Haboker Hazeh (“This Morning”) hosted by Aryeh Golan on state broadcaster Kan, has been circulating on social media.

The interview has been translated by The Electronic Intifada. You can listen to it with English subtitles in this video and a transcript is at the end of this article:

Notably, the interview is not included in the online version of Haboker Hazeh for 15 October, the episode in which it apparently aired.

It may well have been censored due to its explosive nature.

Porat, who is from Kabri, a settlement near the Lebanese border, undoubtedly experienced terrible things and saw many noncombatants killed. Her own partner, Tal Katz, is among the dead.

However, her account undermines Israel’s official story of deliberate, wanton murder by the Palestinian fighters.

Although it no longer appears on the Kan website, there can be little doubt about the recording’s authenticity.

At least one Hebrew-language account posted part of the interview on Twitter, now officially called X, and accused Kan of functioning as “media in the service of Hamas.”

Treated “humanely”

Not only does Porat tell Kan that Israelis were killed in the heavy counterattack by Israeli security forces, but she says she and other captive civilians were well treated by the Palestinian fighters.

Porat had been attending the “Nova” rave when the Hamas assault began with missiles and motorized paragliders. She and her partner Tal Katz escaped by car to nearby Kibbutz Be’eri where many of the events she describes in her media interviews took place.

According to Porat speaking to Maariv, she and Katz initially sought refuge in the house of a couple called Adi and Hadas Dagan. After the Palestinian fighters found them they were all taken to another house, where eight people were already being held captive and one person was dead.

Porat said that the wife of the dead man “told us that when they [the Hamas fighters] tried to enter, the guy tried to prevent them from entering and grabbed the door. They shot at the door and he was killed. They did not execute them.”

“They did not abuse us. They treated us very humanely,” Porat explained to a surprised Golan in the Kan radio interview.

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

“They were very humane towards us,” Porat said in her Channel 12 interview. She recalled that one Palestinian fighter who spoke Hebrew, “told me, ‘Look at me well, we’re not going to kill you. We want to take you to Gaza. We are not going to kill you. So be calm, you’re not going to die.’ That’s what he told me, in those words.”

“I was calm because I knew nothing would happen to me,” she added.

“They told us that we would not die, that they wanted to take us to Gaza and that the next day they would return us to the border,” Porat told Maariv.

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

In addition to providing the captives with drinking water, she said the fighters let them go outside to the lawn because it was hot, especially as the electricity was cut.

Young and scared

About eight hours after the start of the Hamas attack and about half an hour after Porat’s calls to the police, Israeli forces arrived and chaos ensued, Porat told Kan.

“At first there was no [Israeli] security force with us,” Porat recalled, noting that her first call to the Israeli police went unanswered. “We were the ones who called the police, together with the abductors because the abductors wanted the police to arrive. Because their objective was to kidnap us to Gaza.”

“They understand that soldiers will not kill hostages. So they want to come out with us alive and for the police to permit it,” Porat told Channel 12.

Though the Israeli captives numbered only a dozen, Porat was instructed to tell Israeli police that 40 of them were being held by the Hamas fighters, who themselves numbered between 40 and 50 men mostly in their 20s, by Porat’s estimate. They themselves were young and scared, she told Channel 12.

A fighter Porat described as a commander in his 30s asked to speak to the police and was put on with an Arabic-speaking Israeli officer.

After their brief conversation, the four dozen or so Palestinian fighters and their dozen Israeli prisoners awaited the arrival of the army, with some of the group spilling outside to the garden for relief from the afternoon heat.

Hails of bullets, mortars and tank shells

Israeli forces announced their arrival with a hail of gunfire, catching the fighters and their Israeli captives by surprise.

“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.”

Porat said she surrendered to the Israeli soldiers half an hour into the fierce gun battle that consisted of “tens and hundreds and thousands of bullets and mortars flying in the air,” and that one of the Palestinian fighters, a commander, decided to surrender and used her in effect as a human shield.

“He starts to disrobe,” Porat recalled to Kan’s Aryeh Golan. “He calls to me and he starts to leave the house with me, under fire. At that time I yell to the [Israeli commandos] … when they can hear me, to stop firing.”

“And then they heard me and stopped firing,” she added. “I see people from the kibbutz on the lawn. There are five or six hostages lying on the ground outside. Just like sheep to the slaughter, between the shooting of our commandos and the terrorists.”

“The terrorists shot them?” Golan asks.

“No, they were killed by the crossfire,” Porat responds. “Understand there was very, very heavy crossfire.”

Golan presses: “So our forces may have shot them?”

“Undoubtedly,” the former captive responds, and adds, “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages because there was very, very heavy crossfire.”

“After insane crossfire, two tank shells were shot into the house. It’s a small kibbutz house, nothing big,” Porat explains.

Porat and the man who took her captive both survived. The Palestinian was taken prisoner by Israeli forces. But according to Porat, almost everyone else in the settlement was killed, wounded or missing, believed to have been taken to Gaza.

Porat told Kan she lost dozens of friends who had been at the rave – people she would regularly see at parties in Israel’s trance scene.

“I’m angry at the state, I’m angry at the army,” Porat told Maariv. “For 10 hours the kibbutz was abandoned.”

The joint American-Israeli effort to paint Hamas as worse than ISIS in order to justify Israel’s unfolding genocide against the civilian population in Gaza depends on the international public not seeing or hearing accounts like Porat’s.

Israeli leaders, already under intense criticism for failing to anticipate and prevent the Hamas offensive, will also not want their catastrophic failures to be compounded by knowledge that many of the Israelis who died may well have been killed by “friendly fire” in a disastrous Israeli counterattack.

Hannibal Directive?

Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas military commander, has directly addressed Israel’s claims that his fighters set out to deliberately kill as many civilians as possible.

The Israeli propaganda campaign has included lurid atrocity tales – for which no evidence has been produced whatsoever – that Palestinians beheaded dozens of Israeli babies and that women were raped.

Al-Arouri said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday that fighters of his organization’s military force, the Qassam Brigades, were under strict protocol to not harm civilians.

But al-Arouri said that after Israel’s Gaza division – the army unit that surrounds the Gaza Strip – collapsed much more quickly than expected, people in Gaza rushed to the boundary area after learning it had been opened, causing chaos. He said this may have included other armed persons who were not part of Qassam.

Al-Arouri said that this caused Qassam fighters to engage with soldiers, settlement guards and armed residents, which led to civilian deaths.

Al-Arouri also invoked the possibility Israel used the so-called Hannibal Directive – a protocol that allows Israeli forces to use overwhelming force to kill one of their own captured soldiers rather than allow them to be taken prisoner.

The rationale for the Hannibal Directive is to avoid allowing an enemy to have captives that can be used in prisoner exchange negotiations.

However in this case, if the directive was implemented by Israeli forces, it would have been used against civilians.

Al-Arouri told Al Jazeera, “We are certain that young men [fighters] were bombed along with the prisoners who were with them.”

Porat’s account, among others, underscores the need for an independent investigation, one which Israel is unlikely ever to permit.

The current propaganda narrative is simply too valuable to the genocidaires in Tel Aviv.

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.

Transcript of the Kan interview with Yasmin Porat

Yasmin Porat: For an hour they were banging about 10 terrorists on the reinforced safe room. There were screams in Arabic and it was a very tense hour. And we felt great fear that’s indescribable. After an hour they managed to break in and they removed the four of us to a nearby house where there were already eight other additional hostages. We joined those eight and we were about 12 hostages with 40 terrorists that were guarding us. I’m keeping the story short.

Aryeh Golan: Did they abuse you?

Yasmin Porat: They did not abuse us. They treated us very humanely, meaning …

Aryeh Golan: Humanely? Really?

Yasmin Porat: Yes, 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. It was very frightening but no one treated us violently. Luckily nothing happened to me like what I heard in the media.

Aryeh Golan: Horrible, horrific things occurred.

Yasmin Porat: True. But after two hours briefly at first there was no [Israeli] security force with us. We were the ones who called the police together with the abductors because the abductors wanted the police to arrive. Because their objective was to kidnap us to Gaza.

[SKIP OR CUT IN AUDIO]

Yasmin Porat: Meanwhile one of the terrorists decides to surrender, the terrorist I made a connection with. Over the course of those two hours I connected with some of the abductors, those that guarded the hostages.

Aryeh Golan: Yes

Yasmin Porat: And he decides to use me as a human shield. He decides to surrender. I am not aware of it in those moments its in retrospect. He starts to disrobe, he takes he calls to me and he starts to leave the house with me, under fire. At that time I yelled to the YAMAM [Israeli commandos] when we were already when they can hear me, to stop firing.

Aryeh Golan: Yes

Yasmin Porat: And then they hear me and stop firing. I see on the lawn, in the garden of the people from the kibbutz. There are five or six hostages lying on the ground outside, just like sheep to the slaughter, between the shooting of our [fighters] and the terrorists.

Aryeh Golan: The terrorists shot them?

Yasmin Porat: No, they were killed by the crossfire. Understand there was very, very heavy crossfire.

Aryeh Golan: So our forces may have shot them?

Yasmin Porat: Undoubtedly.

Aryeh Golan: When they tried to eliminate the abductors, Hamas?

Yasmin Porat: They eliminated everyone, including the hostages. Because there was very, very heavy crossfire. I was freed at approximately 5:30. The fighting apparently ended at 8:30. After insane crossfire, two tank shells were shot into the house. Its a small kibbutz house, nothing big. You saw it on the news.

Aryeh Golan: Yes

Yasmin Porat: Not a large place. And at that moment everyone was killed. There was quiet, except for one person limping, Hadas [Dagan], in the garden.

Aryeh Golan: How were they all killed?

Yasmin Porat: From the crossfire.

Aryeh Golan: Crossfire, so it could also be from our forces?

Yasmin Porat: Undoubtedly.

Aryeh Golan: Really?

Yasmin Porat: That’s what I believe.

Aryeh Golan: Oy it sounds so bad.

Yasmin Porat: Yes. And everyone died.

Aryeh Golan: And you, thanks to that terrorist who decided to give himself up …

Yasmin Porat: Exactly.

Aryeh Golan: And you survived and all the rest were killed there.

Yasmin Porat: Except for one other woman who survived, they found her later [trails off]. The person who dealt with the event checked her or something. They found her when she lifted her head, amongst all the bodies. And then, simply …

Aryeh Golan: And your partner, who was with you?

Yasmin Porat: Killed.

Aryeh Golan: He was killed too?

Yasmin Porat: Yes. Everyone was killed there. Just horrible.

Aryeh Golan: Have you returned to Kabri?

Yasmin Porat: I returned to Kabri and then the chaos started there.

Aryeh Golan: In the north?

Yasmin Porat: Yes. So now I’m a guest. I’m being hosted in a lovely way in Kibbutz Ein Harod. And I’m here for now.

Aryeh Golan: You’re in the [Jezreel] Valley now. Alright, Yasmin, you’ve undergone a horrific experience.

Yasmin Porat: True.

Aryeh Golan: You lost your partner, you saw people killed alongside you.

Yasmin Porat: And I …

Aryeh Golan: [INTERRUPTS] What happened to that terrorist who gave himself up?

Yasmin Porat: He is still arrested, and he was just called in for interrogation to help … You know, he will be interrogated about the accused. And sadly dozens more of my friends were killed because …

Aryeh Golan: [INTERRUPTS] Dozens of friends?

Yasmin Porat: Yes because its a community, the trance scene, we go to the same parties. It means that besides my partner, I knew dozens and hundreds [CUT OFF]

Source: Electronic Intifada

 

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have taken part in protests against the war crimes of the U.S.-Israeli war machine.

Over 12,000 people filled New York’s Times Square from 42nd Street to 36th Street on Oct. 13 in solidarity with the people of Palestine. They marched to the Israeli mission and the United Nations despite an army of police and a racist campaign of lies and intimidation by the corporate media and corporate politicians, including the governor and the mayor, who attacked the right to protest.

 

On Oct. 14, over 15,000 protesters shut down the streets of Chicago.

Other protests have taken place in Atlanta; Baltimore; Dearborn, Michigan; Denver; Los Angeles; New Orleans; San Diego; Washington, D.C.; and dozens of other cities.

Earlier in the week, protests were staged at colleges and universities across the country.

The University of California-Los Angeles, Rutgers University, the University of Virginia, the Ohio State University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Kent State University, New York University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Illinois, the Arizona State University in Tempe, and Purdue University are among the schools actions were staged, reports, the National Students for Justice in Palestine.

In Europe, Africa, Asia

Around the world, mass protests were also seen in the French cities of Paris and Marseille and the British cities of London, Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester, and Brighton. Protests were reported in Jakarta, Indonesia; Edinburgh, Scotland; Toronto, Canada; Sydney, Australia; and cities in South Africa.

Demonstrations in support of Palestine also took place in Geneva, Switzerland; Turin and Rome in Italy; and Dublin, Ireland.

Rallies were also reported in Albania, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Finland, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, and Venezuela.

In Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen

Al Mayadeen English reports:

Several cities around the world saw rallies and demonstrations in support of the Palestinian people amid the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of thousands of people in countries like Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, and various Arab and Islamic nations have held protests to denounce the Israeli occupation aggression on Gaza and express solidarity with al-Aqsa.

Tehran, the capital of Iran, saw a significant turnout in these demonstrations, which were organized by Palestinian Resistance groups. A notable aspect of the protests in Tehran was the participation of the Iranian mobilization forces, who appeared in their military attire to express support for Palestine.

In addition to the rallies, numerous cities in Jordan saw protests on the day dubbed “Friday of Al-Aqsa Flood.” Mass crowds headed to the border with occupied Palestine to express their condemnation of the ongoing atrocities in Gaza and the renewed attempts to displace the remaining residents.

Jordanian security forces increased their efforts to control the demonstrators. Video footage was circulated online, depicting protesters getting out of their vehicles due to traffic congestion and proceeding on foot.

Likewise, Yemen saw significant gatherings expressing solidarity with Palestine and its Resistance against the occupation’s crimes. A statement issued by the organizers indicated that the Yemeni people are fully prepared to actively participate and are willing to dispatch hundreds of thousands of fighters to defend Palestine.

In response to the Resistance’s call, thousands of Iraqis gathered in Tahrir Square to protest and condemn the occupation’s actions in Gaza.

 

No medicine, no water, no electricity, no fuel. Hunger and desperation as a political weapon. “We are fighting animals and we act accordingly,” said Israel’s Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, when announcing the total encirclement against the Gaza Strip.

There is a thread of steel linking the genocidal rhetoric of the Israeli commander with the architects of the U.S. blockade against Cuba. Lester Mallory, undersecretary of the State Department, made similar arguments in 1962, as Joseph Goebbels had done before after visiting the Lodz ghetto in 1939: “These are no longer men, they are animals. That is why this is not a humanitarian task, but a surgical one.

The Nazi Minister of Propaganda wrote in his diary: “We must make radical incisions here, and radical ones at that”.

Gallant’s threat is serious.

Euro-Med Monitor, a Geneva-based organization, recorded in the first four days of declared war the death of 880 Palestinians, 59 percent of whom were civilians, including 185 children and 120 women. Around 5,000 more people have been injured and hundreds remain trapped under rubble along the border areas. Israel claims to be focusing on military targets, but is hitting residential buildings, hospitals and mosques, where there are no shelters and no way to protect against the unannounced shelling that has already killed entire families.

The new escalation began this time with the Hamas attack, but the revanchist and vengeful mood that now reigns in media and networks, and which naturalizes the conception of Palestinians as animals worthy of being led to the slaughter, completely forgets that Israel has been adding fire to the pressure cooker for years and it finally burst last Saturday. Foreign Policy in Focus has compared the current situation in Gaza to the Attica, New York, prison riot in 1971, which ended in a bloodbath: “If you put prisoners in a cage and torture them, they will revolt.”

The deafening noise in favor of Israel in this war has buried, along with the Palestinian victims, the history of that people, the tragedy they have lived through for decades and the grotesque irony that the original and legal owners of Israeli land live in Gaza today. The only explanation for the strip’s existence is that the Palestinians were dispossessed of their land in 1948, when Israel was created. They – or their children and grandchildren – are among the 2 million Palestinian refugees crammed into the most densely populated territory on the planet, where 80 percent of its inhabitants come from families who lived in what is now Israel. Most of the people in Gaza are not from there. They are refugees who have been victims of dehumanization for far too long now.

“It is the most terrifying place I have ever seen,” wrote the intellectual Edward Said, after one of the countless bombings of Gaza in 2001. “It is a horribly sad place because of the despair and misery in which people live. I wasn’t prepared to see the refugee camps, which are far worse than anything I saw in South Africa.” It was not a leftist intellectual, by the way, but Amnesty International, who declared a few months ago that “the scheme of domination of the Palestinians by Israel constitutes a system of apartheid,” and that it is “a crime against humanity.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, issued a statement on Tuesday in which he reiterated that “the imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential to their survival is prohibited by international humanitarian law”.

It should only be added that the blockade has not appeared now as a result of this war. It has been going on for decades. It is the long prologue to the punishment and forced dehumanization of a people in order to create the perfect alibi leading to their annihilation. We Cubans know it very well. In this particular case, there are layers upon layers of pain for the kidnapping of thousands of Palestinians who were taken away by Israeli soldiers without a trace, for the desolation and helplessness of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who have tried to survive among ruins, for the electricity and water cuts, for the endless curfews, for the shortage of food and medicine, for the wounded bleeding to death, for the systematic attacks against ambulances and humanitarian personnel, for the teenagers attacked with dogs of Tel Aviv’s army, for the murdered children. ..

The truth by name. It is genocide and it comes from afar.

Source: La Jornada translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English

From Marco Valbuena, Chief Information Officer, Communist Party of the Philippines

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) calls on all revolutionary and democratic organizations in the Philippines and around the world to rally around the Palestinian people as they mount armed resistance to drive away the fascist occupying forces of Israel from their land.

Together with the revolutionary fighters of the New People’s Army (NPA), the CPP welcomed news of the armed offensives launched by the Hamas and the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades from the besieged city of Gaza. These armed offensives are punctuated by the launching of five thousand missiles against Israeli military targets, the use of drones to drop bombs on Israeli tanks, the capture of tanks and other military hardware, and other important victories.

These offensives initiated by the Hamas are all an expression of the ardent desire of the Palestinian people to put an end to the 75-year U.S.-supported Israeli war of aggression against Palestine, the occupation of Palestinian territories, including the continuing siege of Gaza, and attacks against communities in the West Bank including East Jerusalem (territories recognized as part of the Palestinian state).

The Palestinian people are determined and roused to fight back, incited by the worsening crimes committed by Israel, including the killing of Palestinians and their children in the streets, torture of Palestinian prisoners, the tightening siege of Gaza, raids on people’s homes, preventing refugees from returning, attacks on mosques and so on.

The armed conflict has been grossly lopsided in favor of Israel. Wars of aggression mounted by Israel against Gaza over the past 15 years have caused more than 6,400 deaths on the Palestinian side, with Israel suffering just above 300.

The armed offensives have been declared as “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” to underscore their call to mobilize the entire Palestinian people to liberate their country.

The Hamas is one of the leading political organizations which advances the struggle of the Palestinian people. The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades is its military organization. Whoever vilifies the armed resistance of the Palestinian people as “terrorism” is in league with the U.S. imperialists and all its cohorts. To establish its hegemony and control of oil in the Middle East, the U.S. imperialists colluded with the Zionists in Israel to obscure and downplay the just aspiration of the Palestinian people for freedom and self-determination.

We have read information how various organizations representing broad sections of the Palestinian people are now taking action in line with calls for carrying out a comprehensive war and using all available weapons to fight Israeli occupation. The Palestinian people are drawing inspiration from the blood of their martyrs who have fought through many years of resistance.

The Filipino people and revolutionary movement in the Philippines are in solidarity with the armed resistance of the people of Palestine. Like the Filipino people who are fighting for genuine national freedom from the clutches of the U.S. imperialist giant, the Palestinian people are up against the Israeli goliath armed by and in collusion with the U.S..

The CPP join peoples around the world who have expressed and manifested their solidarity with the Palestinian people. The CPP calls on the Filipino people to manifest their support to the Palestine resistance in the streets and in all possible ways.

In supporting the Palestinian people, the broad masses of the Filipino people must also condemn Israel and its U.S.-supported military industry for the sale of drones, bombs, and artillery to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that are being used in the campaign of aerial bombing and shelling in the Philippines, especially in the rural areas.

Compared to the massive armory of Israel, the weapons of the Palestinian people are mere slingshots. Even now, emboldened by U.S. support, Israel has mounted heavy counterattacks causing brutal destruction on Palestinian soil, hitting at homes and civilian infrastructure. In doing so, however, Israel is further isolating itself internationally and further rousing the Palestinian masses to fight even more valiantly.

With all out unity and fierce determination to fight, they can drive away the aggressors, end the occupation, and finally free their land.

Source: Philippine Revolution Web Central

A deluge of racism against the Palestinian people goes hand-in-hand with the missiles fired by Israel in revenge for the Al-Aqsa Flood uprising. Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians “human animals.” 

There’s nothing new about Zionist officials dehumanizing Palestinians. Back in 2014, Ayelet Shaked, who later became the Zionist state’s justice minister, posted an article on Facebook that referred to Palestinian children as “little snakes.” 

Israeli bombs are now killing hundreds of Palestinian children in the Gaza ghetto.

Apartheid Israel is a colonial settler state, and defending colonialism requires racist falsehoods. One whopper was President Joe Biden’s lying statement — which had to be retracted — that he saw pictures of Israeli children who had been beheaded. 

Another one was the gruesome picture being shopped around by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a burnt Israeli baby, which was actually created by artificial intelligence (AI). 

The conquistadors that pillaged the Americas claimed the inhabitants were cannibals. Both Indigenous and African peoples were considered “subhuman,” or as the Zionist Gallant put it, “animals.”

One of the biggest lies — in an attempt to deny centuries of genocide— is that the area now occupied by the United States was barely populated by Indigenous nations. Charles C. Mann debunked this falsehood in his book “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.”

Similarly, a favorite Zionist slogan was “a people without land for a land without people.” This implied that Palestine was uninhabited.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir declared in 1969 that “there was no such thing as Palestinians.” She lived in a house stolen from a Palestinian family. 

The oppressor always lies about the oppressed. Hundreds of Hollywood movies featured “innocent settlers” in wagon trains being attacked by “merciless Indian savages.” The actual massacres of Indigenous peoples were rarely mentioned.

Those whose land was being stolen had the right to resist by any means necessary. General Custer had it coming.

Demonizing the ‘Mau Mau’

Seventy years ago the most notorious “terrorist” — as labeled by the U.S. and British media — was not a Palestinian, an Arab, or a Muslim. The person demonized was Jomo Kenyatta, who became the first president of independent Kenya.

At the time, Kenyans were fighting for their freedom from British colonialism. Queen Victoria’s stormtroopers seized Kenya in 1895.

British aristocrats stole the land, with Lord Delamere alone grabbing 160,000 acres. Africans were forced at gunpoint into “native reserves,” modeled on Indian reservations in the United States.

Palestinians were similarly driven from their land during the founding of Israel in 1948. Called the Nakba — meaning catastrophe in Arabic — 15,000 Palestinians were murdered, and Zionists destroyed 531 Palestinian villages.

Oppression sparks resistance. On May Day in 1950, the East African Trade Union Congress issued a call for independence and majority rule.

One hundred thousand workers joined a general strike to protest. Nairobi was paralyzed for nine days. It took a mobilization of the British army and colonial police to crush this uprising.

Freedom demanded that an armed struggle be launched. Kenya’s Land and Freedom Army was born. The capitalist media called it the “Mau Mau.”

Kenya’s colonial governor, Evelyn Baring, responded by declaring a state of emergency on Oct. 20, 1952. The governor’s family-controlled Barings Bank was founded in 1762 by the slave trader Francis Baring.

Baring ordered the colonial police to frame up Jomo Kenyatta and other independence fighters. There was no jury.

According to Caroline Elkins’ Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Imperial Reckoning,” Baring guaranteed a conviction by paying Judge Ransley Thacker a 20,000-pound bribe. That’s worth nearly 710,000 pounds or $874,000 today. 

Baring hoped Kenyatta’s frameup would demoralize Africans. Instead, it ignited years of guerrilla warfare.

Mau Mau fighters liberated weapons and ammunition from the colonialist army and police. Mau Mau-supporting blacksmiths made hundreds of guns.

Britain mobilized 55,000 soldiers and cops to fight the freedom fighters. Caroline Elkins estimated that the colonial forces threw 300,000 Kenyans into concentration camps and forced another million into 800 “emergency villages” built with the Africans’ own slave labor.

The media helped this genocide by printing lurid stories about alleged Mau Mau atrocities, like Netanyahu’s awful baby photo. Typical was Time magazine’s description of a former Land and Freedom Army leader as “one of the Mau Mau’s bloodthirstiest killers.”

Zionists wanted Uganda

Theodor Herzl — the “father” of the Zionist movement — proposed in 1903 that a Zionist state be built in Uganda, which was then a British colony.

British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain, whose empire held a quarter of humanity in chains, was in favor. The British government agreed to establish a “Jewish territory” in East Africa.

Joseph Chamberlain was the father of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. The younger Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1938 Munich Agreement was telling Hitler to go east and invade the Soviet Union.

Much of the proposed Zionist settlement was actually in present-day Kenya. If Herzl’s Uganda project had taken place, 50 years later, Zionist settlers would have been fighting Mau Mau freedom fighters.

Zionism was always a colonial project, not a liberation movement. In 1902, Herzl wrote to Cecil Rhodes, seeking support.

Rhodes was one of the war criminals who carved up Africa for himself and other European and U.S. millionaires. Rhodes founded the De Beers’ diamond monopoly and invaded Zimbabwe, which he renamed “Rhodesia.” 

The people of Zimbabwe waged a decades-long liberation war, or Chimurenga, against the white settler state. Just as they slandered Kenya’s Land and Freedom Army, U.S. and European media called the Zimbabwe freedom fighters “terrorists.”

The U.S. State Department kept Nelson Mandela on its “terrorist watch list” until 2008. 

Nelson Mandela defended Palestine. In a 1997 speech on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, he declared, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!