Ceasefire Now! End the US-Israel Genocide Now! US-Israel — Hands Off the West Bank!

Statement by Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO)

Updated September 4, 2024

For 11 months, Israel has been committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Zionist regime is hand-in-hand with the United States government which provides full political support, endless supplies of weapons and billions of dollars for genocide. On August 28 Israel widened their attack against Palestine, launching an ongoing assault against Palestinians in the West Bank. This is the largest Israeli operation against the West Bank in over 22 years.

The Zionist Israeli regime has focused their attack on the northern the West Bank cities and refugee camps of Tulkarm and Jenin, while also attacking cities and refugee camps throughout the West Bank including Tubas City, al-Far’a refugee camp and Nur Shams refugee camp. Thousands of soldiers with the Zionist Israeli army have flooded into the West Bank, raiding and destroying homes and mosques with gunfire and grenades. Israeli Zionist forces are also launching airstrikes, drone strikes and firing upon Palestinians, killing and wounding Palestinians throughout the West Bank. Hundreds of Palestinians have also been arrested. This massive attack has also targeted Palestinian children according to many reports. On August 28, an Israeli drone-fired missile hit 13-year-old Murad Masoud Naaja, and his 17-year-old brother Muhammad Masoud Naaja on the roof of their home in Al-Far’a refugee camp. Israeli Zionist forces blocked ambulances and medical crews from reaching the bodies of the two boys and their injured brother and father. This war crime has been reported repeatedly, as medics and rescue teams are not allowed to attend to those in need and even entrances to hospitals have been blocked by barriers and soldiers.

As of September 1, Israeli Zionist forces have destroyed much of the infrastructure in the West Bank refugee camp and city of Jenin. The Israeli military has bulldozed Jenin’s streets, destroying water and sewage networks. Electricity, telecommunications systems and internet have been shut off. Currently most of the city of Jenin and the entire Jenin refugee camp are without access to water. As the Israeli siege on Jenin continues, all humanitarian aid has been blocked from entering Jenin.

This operation is an escalation of attacks against the West Bank and opening a new front of the US-Israeli war against Palestine. However, the West Bank was already facing increased attacks from Zionist forces and Israeli settlers. Even before October 7, the year 2023 was already the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the United Nations began recording in 2005. Over 200 Palestinians were killed at the hands of Israeli forces and racist Zionist settlers, and this was before October 7, 2023. After October 7, Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank surged, along with raids and widespread arrests by Israeli military forces. The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that the overall death toll of Palestinians killed in the West Bank since October 7, 2023 by Zionist Israeli forces and settlers has reached 673, with over 5,400 injured. Also, since October 7, 2023, Israeli Zionist forces have detained more than 10,300 Palestinians from the West Bank, including children. Reports of torture, sexual abuse, starvation and lack of medical attention for Palestinian prisoners are rampant.

Long before Al-Aqsa Flood, the Israeli Zionist goal of forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing has been an ongoing and continuous process. One only needs to look at a map from 1948 until today to see how the West Bank has been eaten away by Israeli settlements. Home demolitions in the West Bank have continued for decades unabated despite repeated United Nations resolutions demanding Israel stop inhuman home demolitions and settler expansion.

As the genocide in Gaza continues, it appears the new front against the West Bank is a US-Israeli plan to complete the colonization of Palestine through forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing. However, this move by the US and Israel is not coming from a position of success or victory, but rather from desperation and defeat in Gaza.

Israelis today are protesting against their government in massive numbers, demanding a ceasefire deal that Israel and the US governments fail to agree to. These protests are being met with arrests and excessive force by Israeli police, including the use of water cannons and stun grenades.

For 76 years Israel has existed with the US government propping it up with weapons and funding. Israel has also relied on the myth of safety and security, a myth built on state and government suppression and oppression of the Palestinian people. Al-Aqsa Flood proved that Israel cannot remain unchallenged. Today, the myth is debunked and there is no way for the Israeli Zionist regime and their US imperialist backers to turn the clock back to before October 7, 2023 — even with their latest brutal operation against the West Bank.

End the US-Israel Genocide in Gaza Now!

Meanwhile in Gaza, daily injustices and massacres against Palestinians continue to be committed by the Zionist Israeli regime and by US imperialism. As of September 1, over 40,738 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, not including over 10,000 presumed dead under the rubble. Over 16,500 are children, meaning 2.6 percent of all children in Gaza have been killed.

As the death toll continues to rise, Israeli Zionist forces continue one of their most heinous war crimes — the targeting of schools, which are used to shelter displaced Palestinians. On September 1 Israel bombed the Safad school in Gaza City, killing 11 people and wounding dozens. One of the largest single massacres in nearly 11 months of genocide was also at a school, at al-Tabin School in Gaza City, which was bombed by Israeli Zionist forces on August 10. This horrific massacre killed over 100 people, with many more injured. This was the 4th bombing of a school in just one week. As of September 1, at least 489 schools have been damaged or destroyed, and all of Gaza’s universities have been completely destroyed.

While we join the voices of those around the world outraged by this blatant war crime that Israeli Zionist forces are guilty of committing, we also point the blame to US imperialists responsible for the bloodshed. US President Biden has sent 14,000 bunker buster bombs weighing 2000 pounds to Israel since October 7, 2023, along with thousands more bombs, artillery shells, missiles, ammunition and fighter jets. On August 9 the US Department of State announced they are sending an additional $3.5 Billion of military aid to Israel, part of a $14.5 billion supplemental funding bill approved by US Congress in April. The next day the US announced another $20 Billion of military aid, which includes $60 million worth of munitions manufactured by weapons companies in Canada. On Monday August 26 the reported 500th consignment of weapons and munitions from the US was air delivered to Israel, in addition to 107 deliveries by sea. This totals 50,000 tons of weaponry provided to Israel from the US since October 7, 2023.

Any words that US President Biden or Vice-President Harris utter saying they ask Israel to exercise “restraint” are false, hollow, and deceptive. US imperialists that supply weapons, funding and political support to Israel to carry out this genocide are just as guilty of genocide as Israel is.

US-Israel war mongering in West Asia

The Israeli Zionist regime appears to be trying to provoke a regional war, with attacks on Lebanon, Iran and Iraq. On July 31, Israel assassinated of Ismail Haniyeh, a central political leader of Hamas, which was not only the assassination of a political leader but also of the chief negotiator of ceasefire negotiations. Furthermore, this was a direct attack on the sovereignty of Iran, as Haniyeh was killed while he was in Iran’s capital of Tehran. This assassination was within 24 hours of an Israeli attack on another state’s capital and another assassination, when on July 30 Israel launched airstrikes on Beirut, Lebanon, and assassinated top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an airstrike. These are insane and dangerous steps taken by the Zionist Israeli regime that signal their intention to continue their brutal genocide against the Palestinian people, to provoke a regional war. What more clear demonstration of Israel’s unwillingness to engage in ceasefire negotiations is there than killing the chief negotiator?

This fact becomes more apparent with the July 18 vote of the Israeli Knesset overwhelmingly in favour of rejecting the creation of a Palestinian state. This vote was a final nail in the coffin of the so-called peace agreements between Palestine and Israel, including the Oslo accords, which first began in 1993. The Oslo accords became negotiations on top of negotiations, with no outcome except to buy time for Israel to annex the West Bank. For Israel, the “two-state” solution is off the table once and for all. For Palestine, this means that there will be no going back to the occupation as it was before October 7. There is only one option, complete liberation for Palestine.

Even before Israel assassinated the key Hamas leader and ceasefire negotiator Ismail Haniyeh, Israel has shown time and time again that they are not serious about ceasefire negotiations and are only stalling for time to carry out their genocide against Palestinians. In mid-July while negotiations were being conducted, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu released a list of non-negotiable demands that upended ceasefire negotiations and were criticized by Israeli officials as being a block towards a ceasefire. This comes after the May 31 so-called “Israeli” ceasefire proposal announced by US President Biden which proved to be a complete farce — not only did Israel’s regime fail to agree to it, but Netanyahu responded by launching a more destructive and deadly campaign of bombing and terror throughout Gaza after Biden’s ceasefire announcement. Israeli officials spoke directly against the proposal. Senior Israeli UN diplomat Reut Shapir Ben-Naftaly spoke during the June 10 UN Security Council session which endorsed the ceasefire proposal, and Ben-Naftaly stated that “Israel will not engage in meaningless and endless negotiations” and that the war “will continue … until Hamas military and governing capabilities are dismantled”. How much clearer can it be that Israel is not agreeing to a ceasefire proposal when their UN representatives say this directly during a UN Security Council vote?

Meanwhile, Hamas has consistently welcomed ceasefire negotiations. In the latest round of negotiations following Hamas leader and ceasefire negotiator Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination, Hamas called for an end to the negotiations that are clearly a bid for the US and Israel to buy time to commit further genocide, and instead Hamas said they would agree to a ceasefire based on US President Biden’s May 31 ceasefire proposal. This proposal was also approved by the UNSC on June 10. Instead, on August 19 the US and Israel offered a “bridging proposal”, which benefits only Israel and does not provide a ceasefire to Gaza.

The US and Israel are buying time to conduct more massacres in Gaza, with the aim to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians and to make Gaza unlivable for Palestinians. Already according to a United Nations April 15 report, it would take 80 years to rebuild the destroyed homes of Gaza, if the rate of construction was the same as following Israel’s previous wars against Gaza.

Zionist Israel conducts a Palestinian Holocaust

In Gaza, as we close in on 11 months of genocide, Israeli Zionist forces continue their genocidal bombing targeting schools, hospitals and internationally recognized humanitarian zones. Israel has also inflicted starvation and widespread disease on Palestinians in Gaza. According to a study published on July 5, 2024, by the Lancet medical journal the death toll in Gaza could exceed 186,000 Palestinians due to malnutrition, lack of medication, and unsanitary living conditions, even if the Israeli bombardment, siege and genocide ended today. The World Health Organization has called for a ceasefire and raised the alarm that polio is set to break out in Gaza, while widespread cases of hepatitis A are putting the lives of children at further risk. Both diseases, and many others ravaging Gaza, are due to Israel destroying water, sewage and sanitation facilities, and are entirely preventable with a ceasefire and the return of humanitarian aid. As of September 1, a polio vaccination campaign of 640,000 children is being conducted during 9 hour “pauses” of Israeli bombardment over 3 days, yet what use is a vaccination while facing daily bombing, starvation and a collapsed health system?

Yet another Israeli war crime is against journalists, who continue to be targeted. On July 31 an Israeli strike west of Gaza City killed journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, who were in a clearly marked press vehicle. In nearly 11 months, 172 journalists have been killed in Gaza.

For Palestinians fleeing Israeli Zionist airstrikes and tanks, there is nowhere to go as the Israeli regime has issued evacuation orders for 86% of Gaza, and humanitarian so-called “safe zones” are regularly bombed by Israeli Zionist forces. 90% of Gaza’s 2.1 million population — nine out of 10 people — are internally displaced, many up to 10 times.

The world stands with Palestine!

After nearly 11 months of Israeli’s genocide against Palestinians, recent weeks have been marked by Israel’s increased brutality and horrific massacres throughout Gaza. Israel’s rash and increasingly destructive actions are a mark of desperation in response to Israel’s increasing isolation on the world stage, and the fracturing of support for this genocide within Israel.

More and more countries are recognizing Palestine’s right as a state, and on May 28 Spain, Ireland and Norway announced they formally recognise a Palestinian state. On June 4 Slovenia also became the latest European country to recognize the Palestinian state. This comes after the May 10th United Nations General Assembly vote that overwhelmingly supported Palestine’s membership to the United Nations. The United Nations took another step against Israeli war crimes on June 7, when the UN announced adding Israel to their list of countries which have committed abuses against children in armed conflict. While international institutions increasingly take positions against Israeli war crimes, despite having traditionally remained silent to the war crimes of Israel and their imperialist backers, Israel continuously flouts international law. The charge against Israel of committing genocide, brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa with the support of more than 70 countries, has had at least 10 countries formally join South Africa’s case. Despite repeated orders by the ICJ to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, Israel has not complied. In response to the ICJ orders that Israel stop military operations in Rafah on May 24, Israel bombed Rafah more than 60 times in the 48 hours following the ICJ orders, before committing the May 26 massacre of displaced families sheltering in tents.

The move of international institutions and governments to speak out against Israel comes from the massive groundswell of world public opinion against Israel, against the genocide in Gaza and in support of Palestinian self-determination. Millions of people from all sectors of society, especially working and oppressed people worldwide, are joining consistent and ongoing demonstrations, actions and boycott campaigns to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and in support of Palestine. The student movement across the US has taken a decisive step forward with hundreds of encampments at university and college campuses across the US, as well as at many campuses in countries around the world. On Saturday June 8 massive protests around the world were held in solidarity with Palestine and to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, including over 100,000 protesters in Washington DC who encircled the White House, establishing a 2-mile red line against the US-backed genocide in Gaza. In London, England over 175,000 came to the streets to protest Britain’s arming and support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and to call for a ceasefire. This scene was repeated around the world with demonstrations in Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and many other countries. Around the world the message is clear — humanity stands with Palestine.

Freeing captives or another failure?

Looking closer at the Israeli Zionist regime’s massacre in Nuseirat on June 8, one can see that Israel’s justification of rescuing Israeli captives was nothing more than an attempt to save face after over 8 months of failures. Despite the destruction of Gaza and a genocide against the Palestinian people, Israel has failed to achieve any military objectives, and instead face growing opposition within the Israeli ruling class and society. Israel has had repeated opportunities to negotiate with Hamas for a ceasefire to exchange Israeli captives with Palestinian political prisoners, who number over 10,000 held in Israeli jails. However, the Israeli regime chose a rescue operation that not only resulted in the massacre of over 275 Palestinian people but also killed 3 Israeli captives in the process. How can Israel claim any victory in this “rescue operation” of only 4 Israeli captives when it comes after 8 months of genocide, the killing over 43,000 Palestinians, and the killing of 3 more Israeli captives in Nuseirat in addition to other captives killed over the last 8 months by Israel’s own bombing and direct gunfire? Netanyahu is attempting to celebrate the rescue of 4 captives and downplay the 3 captives killed and attempting to spin this massacre into war propaganda to justify a continued genocide.

Cracks widen in Israeli ruling class and society

On June 9, Israeli minister Benny Gantz resigned from Israel’s war cabinet, which was convened after October 7, citing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s lack of plan for the war on Gaza. Alongside this departure, observer member Gadi Eisenkot also left the war cabinet, and on the same day Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld, senior commander in charge of the Israeli forces Gaza division, also resigned. A week later on June 17, Netanyahu dissolved the war cabinet entirely, referring decisions to his security cabinet.

While political maneuvering continues and criticisms from Israeli military officials and politicians become louder, one thing is clear — Israel’s ruling class is fractured and divided from every side of the political spectrum. The Israeli entity is in a crisis, due to a number of factors putting pressure on this fragile state that has enjoyed its bubble of supposed invincibility that was burst on October 7.

The most central factor shaking Israel’s ruling class and society is the resistance of Palestinian people. In part this is the armed resistance, which shocked Israel on October 7 with their ability to successfully attack 8 Israeli military bases at once and penetrate into Israel, dispelling the myth that there can be security of a state based on occupation and oppression. This continues today with Israeli forces continuing to face casualties within Gaza, not only continuing but increasing even after over 8 months of Gaza being carpet bombed and severely blockaded. According to the Israeli military, 650 Israeli soldiers and officers have been killed since October 7, with January 22 being the deadliest day when 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza, and more recently 8 soldiers killed in a single operation on June 15.

This leads to the Zionist Israeli regime’s inability to achieve any of its stated goals when the genocide on Gaza began. On October 7 the Israeli Zionist regime announced that their objectives in Gaza were to eliminate Hamas, to return the Israeli captives and to bring “safety and security” back to Israel. This is despite the fact that safety and security for Israel has never really existed and cannot be secured on the occupation of Palestine and the oppression, apartheid and genocide of Palestinians. Now into 9 months of genocide and war, the Israeli regime has found these are unachievable objectives.

The other force exerting heavy pressure on Israel is that of sustained, growing international protest and the condemnation of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing by international organizations. As detailed earlier in this statement, the view of Israel on the world stage has dropped while support for the Palestinian struggle has increased. According to a Gallup poll in the US, approval of Israeli military actions in Gaza among Americans dropped from 50% in November 2023 to 36% in March 2024. The voice of public pressure has not only been internationally, but within Israeli society itself. On June 3, the first antiwar student encampment was established at Israel’s Bezalel University in Jerusalem. Tens of thousands of Israelis are protesting the Netanyahu government, and on June 17 protests in front of Netanyahu’s home kicked off an announced week of antigovernment protests, with a key demand being a ceasefire deal. Across Israel, there is a growing sentiment not only for a ceasefire to return Israeli captives, but also to end the genocide against Palestinians. Also among Israeli society is the increase of Israelis leaving Israel. Nearly half a million Israelis left Israel in October and November 2023 and did not return. 80% of Israelis currently living abroad say they don’t intend to return to Israel, according to a March 2023 survey conducted by the Hebrew University at the initiative of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). Even with the US government pumping arms and military funding into Israel, they face decreased investments, a decline in their workforce as their population is either leaving Israel or pulled into military service and industries on hold due to the war.

All of these factors have widened differences within Israel’s ruling class and society at large and contributes to the decline and deterioration of a state that has survived until now dependent on the military, financial and political support of the US imperialism.

Self-Determination for Palestine!

For over 100 years, both while under British colonial rule and since 1948 under Israeli occupation, Palestinians have tried every avenue to assert their right to self-determination, including legal and diplomatic measures. 78 resolutions in the United Nations demanding that Israel respect various aspects of Palestinian human rights have been repeatedly violated. All so-called solutions imposed by imperialists and Israel on Palestinians since 1948, especially the Oslo Accord in 1993, have not brought peace. Instead, as planned they have prolonged and expanded the racist Zionist Israeli occupation and war against Palestine. This imperialist support for Israel isn’t because their governments really care about the Israeli people — since the Balfour Declaration by the British government in 1917, to the formation of Israel on Palestinian land, Israel has always been an imperialist project, first for Britain and today for the United States. Israel is the United States’ forward base into West Asia, a foothold in the region from which to launch surveillance, military attacks, wars, and occupations, and to expand their plunder of resources and markets.

The New Era of War & Occupation

The US imperialist new era of war and occupation has accelerated their drive for hegemony in the region, which we have seen since the war and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001, and continued with the war on Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen. This is why Israel as a Zionist racist and apartheid regime has never been a truly functional legitimate state. Without the economic, financial, and military support of the US and their imperialist allies, including Canada, Israel cannot survive more than a few weeks. Even before October 7, 2023, the US had been supplying more than $4 billion a year in military aid to Israel. Canada also provides military exports to Israel, and Canadian bank Scotiabank is the largest foreign investor in Elbit Systems, a major Israeli weapons manufacturer, who sells “battle tested” drones — battle tested against Palestinian people.

Since October 7, 2023, the defensive military operation of Palestinian resistance fighters from Gaza into Israel effectively ended all deceitful plans by Israel and their imperialist backers in the past, present and future. Today the tide is turning as Palestinians won’t accept any false promises and are fighting for their self-determination and right to exist as a nation and to form a nation-state.

Palestine Will be Free!

We have been lied to for years that the Israel-Palestine conflict is “complicated,” and peace is distant. Before the Zionist project with the support of Britain and other imperialists imposed the state of Israel on Palestinian land, Palestinians of Muslim, Jewish and Christian faith lived in harmony side by side for centuries. Despite the claims that Israel needed to be created as a “safe” homeland for Jewish people, there can be no safety when that state is imposed by a genocidal occupation, as has been done on Palestinian land. This was just a convenient solution for racism in Europe and North America, where historically and today Jewish people face antisemitism, where Jewish people should have the right to live without discrimination. In fact, the safest place historically and today for Jewish people has been in West Asian countries, side by side with their Muslim neighbours! The solution that we are told is complicated is in fact simple. Palestinian’s legitimate demand for the right to self-determination must be met, preferably a single democratic state with the fundamental right of one person, one vote, where Palestinian and Jewish people can live in together in peace and harmony. It is only the Zionist regime and their imperialist backers that are blocking this only viable solution from becoming a reality. If it this could happen in South Africa, it can happen in the entire land of Palestine today from the river to the sea!

Organize, Mobilize and Fight Back!

Now more than ever the international solidarity movement must keep up our support for Palestine. We must keep showing up in the streets, keep up a united front in defense of Palestine, and keep organizing, fighting back and mobilizing for an immediate ceasefire, and for the self-determination and liberation of Palestine!

Ceasefire Now!
Stop Bombing Gaza!
Hands Off West Bank!
Israel Out of West Bank!
End the US-Israel Genocide in Gaza Now!
End the Siege of Gaza Now!
Israel Out of Gaza Now!
Self-determination for Palestine!
US/Canada Stop Arming Israel!
Boycott Israel Now!