
This article is part of a series from the NPA-R in France, looking back at the situation in the Middle East over the past year.
On October 7, it will be a year since the Israeli state launched its most violent and deadly offensive ever against the Palestinian people, using Hamas massacres against the Israeli population as a pretext.
Indescribable Horror in Gaza
It’s hard to deny the genocidal intent of Israel’s leaders when you see the scale of the damage in Gaza.
At a time when eyes are focused on Netanyahu’s extension of the war to the West Bank and now Lebanon, strikes continue daily on Gaza. The latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health put the death toll at over 41,400, including more than 14,100 children. But the real death toll could be much higher. According to former French military officer Guillaume Ancel, the total death toll could be in excess of 80,000, with a further 250,000 injured, representing a total of 15% of the population. In a study published last July, the scientific journal The Lancet put the figure at over 180,000 dead and 630,000 wounded, or 33% of the population.
The material toll is equally appalling: in the north, Gaza City is almost 74% razed to the ground. In Rafah, 46.3% of buildings have been destroyed. Less than one hospital in two is operational, and the largest of them, Al-Shifa Hospital, is in ruins. And almost 90% of school buildings are damaged or destroyed.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that over 200,000 jobs have been lost in Gaza, representing almost two-thirds of total employment in the enclave. UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, calculates that income losses have reached $4.1 million per day, equivalent to the destruction of 80% of Gaza’s GDP.
As in any war, famine is the order of the day, as is the return of epidemics due to a lack of medical care. The NGO Oxfam estimates that, in the short term, more than a million people will be forced to flee their homes. People are threatened by famine. An inhabitant of northern Gaza has to survive on just 245 calories a day – less than half a baguette of bread. The Israeli army has knowingly prevented humanitarian convoys from reaching the north of the enclave, condemning the population.
On August 17, a case of polio was detected in a 10-month-old baby – the first such case in 25 years – a sign that the health situation is absolutely chaotic. According to Unicef, the routine vaccination of all babies after birth is not taking place. Muhannad Hadi, UN coordinator of humanitarian operations in Gaza, said he had seen “scenes worthy of a Hollywood horror film” when he visited hospitals in the Gaza Strip on September 12.
In the West Bank: A Forced March to Build Settlements
The entire Palestinian people has been targeted: in the space of a year, more than 700 Palestinians have been killed in Jerusalem and the West Bank, either by the army or by settlers. At the end of August, the Israeli army launched a vast military offensive in the north of the West Bank, notably in Jenin, which claimed the lives of almost forty Palestinians, including eight children. On September 19, a video showed Israeli soldiers throwing the corpses of Palestinians from the top of a building in the Jenin area, after executing them.
These Israeli army operations in the occupied territories of the West Bank are not a response to operations by Palestinian groups. They accompany the record acceleration in settlement activity undertaken by the Israeli state since October 7. The UN reports that 24,300 new Israeli housing units will be built in the West Bank in the year ending October 2023. Of these, some 9,670 units will be built in East Jerusalem. This is the highest figure since 2017, when the UN began documenting Israeli settlement. Yet Israel plans to build another 3,476 homes for settlers.
This large-scale construction to establish Israeli settlers – the UN recalls that the transfer of civilian population into territories occupied by a state constitutes a war crime – is accompanied by increased pressure on Palestinian families to leave their land. According to the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, from October 7, 2023 to July 31, 2024, the State of Israel demolished 139 residential structures in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, on the pretext that they had been built without permits. 1,303 Palestinians lost their homes, including 615 children. At the same time, Israel refuses almost all Palestinian requests for building permits. The United Nations human rights chief declares that “settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state”.
In Israel: Torture and Abuse in Prisons
The State of Israel, like all colonial states, organizes the apartheid of colonized populations by subjecting them to systematic oppression and repression. In Israel, this has taken the form of a veritable system of imprisonment of the Palestinian population, particularly in the occupied territories of the West Bank.
Israel practices what it calls “administrative detention”: the Israeli army can arrest Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as “administrative detainees” on the grounds that they “might commit offenses in the future”. The prisoners must be brought before a military court within eight days of their arrest, but without being told of the charge or the evidence. In other words, a veritable system of abduction and kidnapping by the army. Since October 7, the number of administrative detentions has exploded.
The revelation of the rape of 36 Palestinian detainees in the Sde Teiman military camp in the Negev desert by Israeli soldiers has shown the world the horror of Israeli prisons. Admittedly, the army had to arrest the soldiers involved, but the presence of the Heritage Minister and parliamentarian Zvi Sukkot at the demonstrations in support of these soldiers shows that these practices are not isolated cases, but a veritable system.
The NGO B’Tselem has compiled the testimonies of 55 Palestinians detained by Israel since October 7 in a damning report. The report describes daily acts of sexual assault, voluntary sleep deprivation, refusal of adequate medical treatment… to the point that the NGO speaks of a veritable “network of camps dedicated to ill-treatment”.
Since October 7, the number of Palestinian prisoners has doubled, reaching 9,623 last July. Of these, 4,781 are being held not only without trial, but without even being made aware of the allegations against them.
To Stop the Massacre, Put an End to Israeli Colonial Rule
The State of Israel is a colonial state that maintains its domination only through systematic violence against the populations of the territories it occupies. This violence has reached a new level since October 7, with the systematic, planned extermination of the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, and the intensification of the colonization of the West Bank.
But the resistance of the Palestinian people, who want to live on their own land, cannot be crushed, unless they are totally exterminated – a scenario that some extreme right wingers in Israel would no doubt like to see realized, but which is unfeasible.
It is impossible to hope for lasting peace in the Middle East without first putting an end to this colonial regime.