Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza has been going on for almost 10 months. During that time, Gaza has had its infrastructure and housing obliterated, Palestinians have been driven to the brink of starvation and over 40,000 people have been killed. Now, it seems, the news has refocused on the electoral drama in the U.S. and Europe, and the Gaza War is becoming “old news.” However, the damage being done, and the danger of a further escalation of war in the Middle East, is hardly over.
Israel has imposed evacuations and “no-go zones” on 80 percent of Gaza, leaving the two million residents of Gaza to huddle in crowded refugee camps.
On July 13, in the Bedouin town of Al-Masawi near the city of Khan Younis, a supposed safe zone, Israeli forces killed 90 people in a strike intended to hit one of Hamas’s commanders. Then again, July 22, Israeli tanks and artillery assaulted Khan Younis, killing 70 people. Israel and the United States make a lot of noise about “safe zones” for civilians, but Israel has repeatedly shown its willingness to ignore civilian safety and carry out such mass atrocities.
Recent tests of Gaza’s sewage has revealed an explosion of poliovirus, which causes the horrific disease poliomyelitis or “polio.” Without proper sanitation and the capacity to contain and isolate a polio outbreak, this presents a major threat of an epidemic spreading throughout the Gaza population.
The $230 million pier project constructed off Gaza’s coast by the Biden administration has been a major failure, nothing more than a public relations stunt. The pier is being dismantled and shut down, having contributed little relief to the people of Gaza.
Regional tensions continue to boil. In Southern Lebanon, the political party and militia, Hezbollah, continues to engage in low-scale warfare with the Israeli army. Roughly 90,000 people in Southern Lebanon and a similar number in Northern Israel have fled the fighting and evacuated the border region. In addition, a recent drone attack by the Yemen-based Houthis struck Tel Aviv, killing one person. Israel retaliated with a strike on oil facilities at the port of Hodeidah resulting in 87 people wounded. Both the Houthis and Hezbollah have alliances and receive aid from Iran, and these incidents risk inflaming a regional war that threatens to erupt at any moment.
Israel’s war on the Palestinians is not only an ongoing atrocity, it threatens to drag the Middle East and even the world into a whirlpool of warfare and bloodshed. Gaza continues to suffer. Those who oppose the genocide must continue to oppose Israeli and U.S. policy.
