On Thursday, Israeli forces killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a firefight in Rafah. Sinwar’s assassination prompted declarations of full support for the Netanyahu government from the leaders of the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, who took the opportunity to openly support the campaign. Netanyahu’s extermination and ethnic cleansing against a population of 2.2 million people.
Sinwar died resisting his assassins, but the fact that he resisted them does not make his death any less murder. His assassination is part of an illegal war supported by imperialism, the objective of which is the extermination of the population of Gaza and the annexation of the territory illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.
Sinwar’s killing follows a campaign of unlawful assassinations targeting all Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, as well as Iranian figures, as the United States and Israel expand their military assault across the region. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by more than 80 2,000-pound bombs in Lebanon last month, and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July.
Sinwar was born on October 29, 1962 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza. His family had been expelled from Majdal Asqalan, also known as Ashkelon, in southern Israel, during the imperialist-backed ethnic cleansing of Arabs in what became Israel in 1948. When Sinwar was only five years old, Gaza was illegally occupied by Israel as part of the occupation of all Palestinian territories. For virtually its entire life, Israel has subjected the population of Gaza to a total blockade, transforming the enclave into the world’s largest concentration camp and denying its residents basic human rights. Israel has kidnapped, killed and tortured Gaza residents with impunity.
President Joe Biden called Netanyahu on Thursday “to congratulate him on his mission,” the White House said in a statement. The statement states that “Hamas will never again be able to control the Gaza Strip.”
On Thursday, Biden released a statement saying: “With the help of our intelligence services, the Israeli military relentlessly pursued Hamas leaders, bringing them out of hiding and forcing them to flee. … Today proves once again that no terrorist anywhere in the world can escape justice, no matter how long it takes to get there.”
The president continued: “Israel has every right to eliminate the leadership and military structure of Hamas.”
Biden’s remarks hailing Sinwar’s assassination could have been delivered by a fascist leader. They illustrate the repudiation of democratic principles at the highest level of the American state. Assassinations and genocides are considered by the leaders of “democratic” countries as legitimate policy, reflecting the disintegration of democratic forms of government and international law and their reaching an increasingly extreme level of criminality.
In subsequent statements in Berlin, Biden said Sinwar’s assassination provided “an opportunity to seek a path to peace.” But his earlier statement made clear that what he meant by “peace”: ensuring that Hamas “would never again be able to control Gaza,” meaning peace on terms dictated by the genocidal government. of Netanyahu.
Biden’s statements were echoed by the leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy, as well as across the political spectrum in the United States, including Senator Bernie Sanders , who said Sinwar was a “war criminal who orchestrated the brutal October 7 terrorist attack.”
Declarations of support for Israel by the imperialist powers constitute an endorsement of the Gaza genocide as it enters a new critical phase where Israel makes clear that mass starvation and ethnic cleansing of the Gaza population is its explicit goal .
Israel is implementing what has become known as the “generals’ plan,” coined by Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council.
Since November, Eiland has publicly advocated adopting starvation as a method of warfare, not only in practice, as Israel does, but also as an official doctrine.
Last year he wrote:
Who are the “poor” women of Gaza? They are all mothers, sisters or wives of Hamas assassins… The international community is warning us of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and serious epidemics. We must not shy away from it, however difficult it may be. After all, serious outbreaks in the southern Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce losses among IDF soldiers [l’armée israélienne].
Today, major US media outlets admit that Israel is implementing this plan. An article published Friday in the Washington Post quotes Israeli political scientist Gayil Talshir as saying: “Part of what is happening now in northern Gaza is a test of the Eiland plan.”
The article reports that “during the first two weeks of October, no food reached the 400,000 people in war-ravaged northern Gaza.”
He continues thus:
What happened in this part of the enclave reflects, at least in part, a controversial siege plan designed by a former Israeli general to take full control of northern Gaza and then larger parts of the enclave . This plan calls for systematically emptying the areas of civilians and starving – or slaughtering – all those who remain.
The implementation of Eiland’s plan to starve the population of Gaza and kill or displace every Palestinian man, woman and child in northern Gaza provides the context for the deployment of 100 US troops to Israel in support of an Israeli strike massive planned against Iran.
The essential content of the open embrace of assassination, terrorism and genocide on the part of the imperialist powers is their escalation of war throughout the world.
This week, the columnist of Washington PostGeorge Will, declared that “World War III is already underway (World War III is already underway)”. The target of this war is “today’s axis: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea”, and it is led by the imperialist powers. Under conditions of world war, imperialist states declare that all measures are permitted, including murder and genocide, to achieve their geopolitical goals.
A warning is necessary. The methods of assassination and extermination of civilian populations which are legitimized in the context of this world war will be used against internal political opposition, in particular against the resistance of the working class to the measures demanded within the framework of the “war effort”.
The unleashing of genocide, terrorism and military violence by imperialist powers throughout the Middle East underscores the urgent need to build a mass, working class-based anti-war movement aimed at overthrowing the capitalist system. , which is the origin of imperialist violence throughout the world.
(Article published in English on October 19, 2024)
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