The reported death toll in Gaza is now 39,583 Palestinians, not counting tens of thousands of dead still buried in the rubble of bombed homes, apartment buildings, and even hospitals. Israeli bombs and missiles have injured an additional 91,398 in Gaza. That is six percent of the entire population of Gaza now killed or injured. 

The four events you are about to read about took place this past week, and on top of what are already world-historic crimes against humanity. And these crimes were funded, armed, and backed by every significant government figure in America from the rabid MAGA fascists to Genocide Joe Biden and his tag along, Kamala Harris.

Israel Assassinates Hamas’s Main Ceasefire Negotiator in Iran, Sets the World on Edge

On July 31, Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the main Hamas negotiator in ceasefire talks with Israel mediated by the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar. The assassination, in Iran, was an extremely provocative act that radically escalated the danger of a regional war, or worse (see As Israeli Actions Take the Middle East to the Brink of Regional War and the Threat of Nuclear War Looms... U.S. Capitalism-Imperialism Bears Direct Responsibility for analysis of the implications of this). And Israel assassinated the person they are supposedly negotiating with for a ceasefire.

For going on ten months, the U.S. has insisted that Israel is open to a ceasefire, but Hamas is blocking it. But in all that time, it has been Israel that has been repeatedly sabotaging ceasefire talks. 

Israel Massacres Refugees in Schools 

On August 3, Israel’s air force fired three missiles into a school sheltering desperate refugees north of Gaza City. 

The Israeli military claimed the school was a Hamas command center manufacturing weapons. And that this was a precise strike on Hamas. But hundreds of civilians including children were sheltering there. Reports from the scene document that after a first strike, the Israeli air force waited until emergency civil defense teams arrived to fire three additional missiles. Several classrooms in the already densely packed school were destroyed. Video from the scene shows massive destruction and terrified civilians fleeing for their lives.

The next day, August 4, an Israeli F-16 fighter jet supplied to Israel by the United States bombed another school, this one in Gaza City. The attack killed at least 25 people, and as we post this, at least 14 are still buried under rubble. Most of the victims were women (who are not part of Hamas’ Islamic fundamentalist military operations) and children. Once again, Israel claimed this was a targeted attack on Hamas “command and control centers.” 

Israel Assassinates Journalists to Bury the Truth

On July 31, Israel purposely assassinated two Al Jazeera correspondents reporting from the Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza along with a nearby bike delivery boy. Reporter Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami Al-Rifi lived in Gaza. They had just been reporting live from an Israeli attack on the family home of Hamas spokesman and chief ceasefire negotiator Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated the day before while in Iran. The other victim was 16-year-old Khaled Al-Shawa, on his way to deliver food to an elderly family. 

Throughout the Arabic-speaking world, Ismail al-Ghoul was the face of coverage of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza. Israel issued a public statement taking credit for purposely killing al-Ghoul, claiming that he “was responsible for the recording and publication of attacks against IDF troops.” In other words he was reporting from a war zone on what was happening. Israel provided no excuse for assassinating al-Ghoul’s cameraman Rami al Rifi or nearby Khaled Al-Shawa on his bike.

Those were U.S. supplied bombs that killed Ismail al-Ghoul, his cameraman, and a teenage bystander. And then U.S. officials began a routine they run every time world outrage forces them to address a crime against humanity by Israel. They promised that Israel—headed by a genocidal maniac Prime Minister Netanyahu (Netan-nazi)—will investigate itself! When asked at a press conference why the U.S. wasn’t doing anything about a “premediated crime to kill a journalist for doing their job,” Vedant Patel, Principal Deputy Spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said, “We’re tracking the details. We continue to engage with our partners in Israel about any additional information.”

The relevant wording in that bullshit: our partners in Israel. The very genocidal monsters who assassinated the Al Jazeera journalists. And the operative message to Israel: Do what you think you have to do, we’ll mutter some bullshit to cover our, and your, asses.

Danger of Polio: A By-Product of Israel’s Invasion of Rafah, a Weapon in Israel’s Genocide

Israel has systematically destroyed Gaza’s waste disposal and sanitation systems. Israel’s bombs, missiles, and threats have driven a million Palestinian people into packed tents in the cities of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah. Children have nowhere to play but in streams of sewage. That is where polio samples have been detected. 

At the end of July, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that “without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected.” WHO has a million doses of polio vaccine to administer in Gaza. But they can’t distribute them in anything close to the scale needed because Israel continues to make all of Gaza a free-fire zone, and choke off aid going in. WHO reports that “a ceasefire and free-flowing aid are the only definite ways to protect people and prevent an explosive outbreak.”

Genocide Serving the U.S. Empire

Biden is out, but in one of, if not the major statement from Kamala Harris since taking over as the Democratic Party candidate for President, was a defense of Israel’s genocide as Israel “defending itself.” And a pledge of “unwavering commitment to the existence of the state of Israel” as a genocidal apartheid state.The fact that this was covered over in fake sympathy for the Palestinian people does not change the truth of the bloody genocide she is part of defending, funding and supporting.

Which is yet more evidence for what the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian argues in his social media post, Revolution #7:

Why is Biden, and basically the entire government and ruling class of the U.S., supporting Israel in carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people, before the whole world? Here is the answer to that crucial question:

This is not because of “the power of the Jewish lobby”—or because of some ignorant, ridiculous and outrageous notion that “Jews are controlling everything.” It is because Israel plays a “special role” as a heavily armed bastion of support for U.S. imperialism in a strategically important part of the world (the “Middle East”). And Israel has been a key force in the commission of atrocities which have helped to maintain the oppressive rule of U.S. imperialism in many other parts of the world.... 

It’s the system! The system of capitalism-imperialism that Biden serves. The system he has to serve—the system that anybody and everybody has to serve if they want to hold office, and especially “high office,” like president, within this system. That is why Biden is doing what he’s doing—what all these politicians are doing—above and beyond their more narrow personal interests.

It’s the system! This system of capitalism-imperialism that embodies and enforces white supremacy, patriarchal male supremacy and other brutal oppression—this system resting on ruthless life-stealing exploitation of masses of people in this country and literally billions of people worldwide, including more than 150 million children—all enforced with massive violence and destruction, of people and the environment, posing a very real threat to the future and the existence of humanity.

This system that needs to be overthrown at the soonest possible time, through an actual revolution.