From October 10 to October 19, the U.S.-backed and -armed Israeli “Defense” Force (IDF) carried out a mounting wave of massacres and other crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza. 

The Israelis themselves claim that their supposed “target”—the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas organization—has been thoroughly decimated. Yet this has not deterred them from unleashing the most powerful military in the Middle East against hundreds of thousands of starving, homeless and unarmed Palestinian civilians. Nor has it stopped them from targeting hospitals, schools, water wells and sewage plants, and other targets that are supposed to be “off limits” to military attack.¹

Here is just some of what happened in this period:

Slaughter in Central Gaza

Thursday, October 10: The IDF attacked a school in Deir al-Balah (in central Gaza) that was sheltering refugees. Twenty-eight people were killed. Injured survivors were rushed to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. 

One of the wounded being treated at Al-Aqsa was Shaban al-Dalou, a 19-year-old software engineering student trying to keep his parents, two sisters and two brothers alive in impossible conditions in a wasteland of Israeli destruction. Seriously hurt, Shaban was still hooked to an IV four days later. 

Don’t forget Shaban al-Dalou; we will come back to his fate shortly.

Over the next few days, Israel stepped up its assault throughout central Gaza. 

On Saturday, October 12, the IDF carried out an air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp, near Deir al-Balah. (Take a moment to think about the outlook and nature of an army that bombs desperate people living in tents!) Among the dead, a family of eight—a mother, father, and six children. The youngest was eight years old.

Then on Sunday, October 13, the IDF hit again, this time bombing the Mufti school in Nuseirat, which had been turned into a refugee camp, as well as a center for polio vaccinations.² Another 22 Palestinians were killed, and many injured.

Now you can imagine the scene at Al-Aqsa hospital—the beds filled with patients and others on the floor, fighting for their lives. Refugees and bereft families jamming every available space. Doctors working around the clock without proper supplies… And yes, the IDF, which on Monday, October 14, bombed Al-Aqsa. The bombing set off a fire that spread to the tents—most made of flammable material—that surrounded the hospital. Four people were killed immediately, dozens more suffered horrible burns, with many succumbing in the coming days.

One of those killed was Shaban al-Dalou from Deir al-Balah. The fire overtook first his sisters—his father rushed to carry them to safety. Then he came to Shaban’s bedside. It was in flames. Shaban died there; his mother and younger brother were also killed, and his two sisters are on the verge of death. 

Shaban’s father said: “Every time I close my eyes, I see my wife and son burning.”

Northern Gaza: “A genocide within a genocide”

And don’t think that Israel’s army was only carrying out massacres in central Gaza. No, in the same period (early-mid October), the IDF has been committing even more terrible crimes in northern Gaza.

On October 1, the IDF cordoned off north Gaza and refused to let any food, water, medicine or other humanitarian supplies in for at least 12 days! After that, under international pressure, a total of perhaps 100 trucks have been allowed in. But according to humanitarian groups, north Gaza’s 400,000 people need 500 trucks each day to avert hunger. A top UN official warned that “supplies for survival are running out.” And even since this trickle of trucks has been allowed in, 50 urgently needed medical specialists are being denied entry. 

The IDF is also refusing to let anyone leave; according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), “Nobody is allowed to get in or out; anyone who tries is getting shot.”

It's also worth noting that Israel—which denies independent access to Gaza by non-Palestinian reporters, continues to murder Palestinian journalists.³ On Friday, October 9, Fadi al-Wahidi, an Al-Jazeera cameraman was shot in the neck by an IDF sniper in the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza, which the IDF sees as a hotbed of resistance. Fadi is now in a coma, facing total paralysis. Only two days before, journalist and teacher, Omar al-Balaawi, was killed by the IDF.

Fadi al-Wahidi’s shooting was only one part of Friday’s IDF attack in Jabalia—at least 20 other Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded. On Monday, October 14, IDF returned, this time launching an air strike on a distribution center for humanitarian aid. Ten people were killed, at least 30 wounded.

On October 15, the liberal Israeli paper Haaretz wrote that “many [north Gaza] residents [are] reporting hunger and a severe shortage of basic supplies due to the lack of aid reaching the area. Mahmoud, who lives with his family in Jabalia in northern Gaza and refuses to evacuate, told Haaretz that in some neighborhoods there is no fresh drinking water or any infrastructure, and residents feel they are living on borrowed time."

On Thursday, October 17, Haaretz reported yet another attack on the besieged Jabalia camp killing 19, wounding dozens more. The IDF described this as a “targeted attack” on a “Hamas… compound that was previously the grounds of the Abu Hassan school.” (Emphasis added.) 

There is this drop of truth in this statement: once the IDF blows it up, it is no longer a school.

On Friday, October 18, Haaretz reported that there had been “an invitation circulated by [Prime Minister] Netanyahu's Likud party to an event titled ‘Preparing to Resettle Gaza,’ and a tour held near the Gaza border on Friday for its organizers.” (Emphasis in original). This is an “invitation” to finish the ethnic cleansing/genocide of Palestinians, and move in Israeli settlers in their place!

On Saturday, October 19, the IDF again attacked Jabalia. They hit Indonesian Hospital, one of three functioning hospitals in the area. IDF shut off electricity to the whole facility—immediately putting the lives of dozens of patients in jeopardy. Then they shelled the second and third floors of Indonesian. 

In the Jabalia camp, tanks destroyed roads and houses. Residents say that IDF destroys dozens of homes every day.

At least 32 people were killed in this attack. At least 20 were women and children. (Because Hamas’s reactionary fundamentalist ideology bars women from fighting, “women and children” by definition means “noncombatants.” Of course, many, most or perhaps all of the men killed were also non-combatants.)

Later in the same day (Saturday) the IDF launched a devastating assault on Beit Lahiya, another north Gazan town, killing 73 people and wounding more than 100 others. The bombardment was so heavy that the ground shook and buildings full of people collapsed, trapping many in the rubble. Rescue teams could not reach the most affected areas. 

Many injured taken to the Kamal Adwan Hospital “died due to a severe lack of resources, medical supplies and specialised personnel at the facility,” according to the hospital director. 

Is it any wonder that Palestine’s envoy to the UN said that “What is happening in northern Gaza now is a genocide within the genocide”?

Rising Danger of Famine

On Thursday, October 17, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) sounded the alarm about the danger of famine sweeping all of Gaza.⁴ Using a five-point scale, IPC determined that 86 percent of Gazans (about 1.8 million people) face “Phase 3” levels of hunger crisis, which can rapidly deteriorate to the highest (worst) level, Phase 5, which means “catastrophic hunger.” And this can turn into mass deaths from starvation if there isn’t major intervention. Already, six percent of the population (about 120,000 people) are at Phase 5, and that is expected to double in the next two months.

The news media likes to call all this “a humanitarian crisis”—language that makes it sound like a natural disaster such as one caused by an earthquake or a drought. But in reality, it is a result of deliberate action by the Israelis to starve and break the population. This is shown by the hundreds of trucks full of supplies lined up outside Israeli checkpoints, barred from entering Gaza. By the killing of humanitarian workers, including the IDF attack on the World Central Kitchen aid convoy in April in which seven staffers were killed. By the frequent attacks by Israel on food distribution points and by the sealing off of north Gaza at the start of October that we described earlier. 

No Turning Away!

Bluntly put, Israel is carrying out a genocide—the expulsion, destruction or killing of the Palestinian people in Gaza—right before our eyes…. Everyone needs to confront this reality and act to end it.

Here it is worth reflecting—and acting—on REVOLUTION #4 @BobAvakianOfficial. In it, Bob Avakian addresses a crucial question:

I know some people say: “Why should I care about things like Palestine, we’ve got enough problems right here that need to be dealt with.”

First of all, you should care because you are a human being. And, the fact is that things will never be made right—and masses of people will never get out of the hell they are in—as long as this system of capitalism-imperialism continues to rule over people here and to dominate the world.

The problem for people everywhere is THIS SYSTEM. This system of capitalism-imperialism that is the force behind the slaughter of people in Palestine is the same system that is causing so much misery for masses of people in this country. Ripping away basic rights, treating whole groups of people as “second class” and less than human. Maintaining many in desperate conditions and driving many to desperate acts. Poisoning people’s minds with this system’s putrid culture and depraved “values”: “do for self and to hell with everybody else”...“get what you want, any way you can”...“pursue your dreams,” while sleepwalking through the real nightmare. Distracting and demoralizing people with dead-end and deadening pursuits. Terrorizing people with brutality and murder by the police, and mass incarcerating people already denied a decent life. All this while this same system robs people here and everywhere of a future worth living in, or any future at all, with the accelerating destruction of the environment and the wars which threaten to go over to all-out conflict between nuclear-armed powers which could wipe out humanity.

All this is why you, why every decent person, should care—and should act to do something about this—to do the most meaningful thing that could be done: to be part of the revolution to put an end to this system, and all the misery it imposes on people everywhere.