Saturday, August 10, 2024

Israel’s school massacres are part of a deliberate policy

The US is providing huge new weapons shipments to Israel and Saudi Arabia


The aftermath of Saturday’s school missile strike


By Charlie Kimber
Saturday 10 August 2024
SOCIALIST WORKER Issue


An Israel missile strike killed at least 93 people sheltering in a school in Gaza on Saturday. It was the fourth and most deadly Israeli attack on a school in two weeks.

Civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said three Israeli rockets hit Gaza City’s al-Tabin school which was housing displaced Palestinians.

He described the scene as a “horrific massacre” saying crews were trying to control a fire in order to rescue the wounded and retrieve bodies.

Hani Mahmoud of Al Jazeera news said, “There is a huge influx of people pouring into the al-Ahli hospital after the attack on the school. Many of those arriving are in critical condition.

“But the hospital lacks enough staff and medicine, so it cannot provide adequate medical care. It’s on the brink of collapse. Many are arriving either soaked in blood or already pronounced dead.”

The particular bombs used sent shrapnel flying that cut through flesh.

Footage of the attack that reporters saw showed people being picked up from the ground in pieces.

Francesca Albanese, a United Nations official on the Occupied Palestine territories, commented, “In the largest and most shameful concentration camp of the 21st century, Israel is genociding the Palestinians one neighbourhood at a time, one hospital at a time, one school at a time, one refugee camp a the time, one ‘safe zone’ at a time.

“It’s doing it with US and European weapons and amid the indifference of all ‘civilised nations’.”

Hassan Barari, professor of international affairs at Qatar University, said that these attacks are part of Israel leader Binyamin Netanyahu’s calculation about the ceasefire talks that are supposed to start next week.

“Just yesterday, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said that going to Doha or Cairo is a kind of capitulation and that Israel should not go and conduct negotiations over a ceasefire.

“So Netayhahu is trying to appease those people in his own government”.

Barari added that Netanyahu does not want a ceasefire, and takes every chance he can to undermine talks.

“It is part of a game. Every time we have hopes of a ceasefire, the Israelis will commit some kind of atrocity and that will undermine the talks,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Labour government dithers over whether to stop any arms sales to Israel. With every day that passes, its failure to halt the weapons means Keir Starmer, David Lammy and the rest are complicit in mass murder.

The Stop the War Coalition said, “There is seemingly no limit to Israel’s barbarity. The genocide enablers in Whitehall and Washington once again have blood on their hands.”

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign added, “This is the third worst massacre since Israel began its genocide against Palestinians. The UK government must immediately stop arming Israel and end all complicity in its violence and apartheid.” Next national march for Palestine, Saturday 7 September, 12 noon, London. End the Genocide – Stop Arming Israel – No Middle East War – No to Islamophobia. Details here

A pattern of school attacks

On 4 August an Israeli missile strike killed dozens of displaced people sheltering in two schools in Gaza.

Palestinian media said at least 30 people died in the strikes. Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence, said most of the dead were women and children.

He added that more people were believed to be buried under the rubble.

The attack on the al-Nasr and Hassan Salama schools came on the day of an attack on a camp for displaced people in a hospital in central Gaza, which killed at least five people.

On 3 August an air strike on Hamama School in Gaza City killed at least 17 people.

Days earlier, an Israeli strike on Dalal al-Mughrabi School killed 15.

Why Israel kills children


It is central to imperialism that the lives of colonisers are worth far, far more than the lives of those they oppress and eliminate.

That murderous arrogance is allied with racism—the white invader is more human, more advanced than the black and brown people he rules.

That disgusting calculus is not some ancient prejudice. It is as modern as the Israel attacks on Gaza schools.

Israel claims its school attacks are targeting a small number of Hamas fighters. That is often a lie. But even if it were true, Israel knows that a large number of civilians will die.

Saturday’s strike was on a prayer hall, at a time of prayer when everyone was gathered there.

But in its depraved desperation to crush resistance, the Israeli reckoning is that removing a few fighters is worth the elimination of dozens or even hundreds of civilians.

To reduce its humiliation, Israel readily accepts murdering children.

There is a direct ideological and physical line from the mass “elimination of the natives” in Australia, Canada and the Americas to imperialist-backed murder in Israel today.

There is a blood-connection between the actions of British imperialism in Kenya and India and Ireland and the way British-backed Israel kills in Gaza.

This is how imperialism and colonialism have always behaved, and this won’t stop until revolution destroys the system that spawned such vile actions.

More arms from US for Israeli and Saudi killers


Trampling on talk that it is pressuring Israel into a ceasefire, the United States government revealed on Friday it will send an additional $3.5 billion (£2.8 billion) to Israel to spend on US-made weapons and military equipment.

The cash comes from a £11.4 billion supplemental funding bill for Israel passed by the Congress in April.

Part of the new financial aid will go to an Israeli military unit, which is accused of carrying out human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The US state department said it had decided against sanctioning the unit—which would have been the first-ever blocking of aid to the Israeli military—saying it was satisfied with Israeli efforts to address “violations by this unit” which have been “effectively remediated”.

While the US has not publicly named the unit, it is believed to be Israel’s Netzah Yehuda battalion.

The battalion and some of its members have been linked to the abuse of Palestinian civilians, including the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian-American man after his detention by the unit in 2022.

The Joe Biden administration has decided to lift a ban on US sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, reversing a three-year-old policy allegedly to pressure the kingdom to wind down the Yemen war.

A senior state department official confirmed the US was lifting its suspension on certain transfers of air-to-ground munitions to Saudi Arabia.

This is in preparation for the wider war that could be triggered after the expected—and fully justified— Iranian and Hezbollah response to a series of Israeli assassinations.Earlier this week, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem published a report describing the Israeli detention facilities for Palestinians as “a network of torture camps.” The organisation said physical, psychological, and sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners is routine. Read the report here

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