The Current Crisis  

Following the events of October 7, 2023, Israel has embarked upon a horrific genocide in Gaza, exposing its savagery and barbarism to the world. From the very outset of this holocaust, the Zionist regime made clear its genocidal intent and desire to ethnically cleanse Gaza.  

In this ongoing Western-backed slaughter, Palestinian homes, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, bakeries and water facilities have been systematically destroyed. Almost the entirety of the 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been displaced and subjected to immense suffering, with thousands of innocent children enduring amputations and unimaginable trauma.  

The Lancet published a report in July 2024 that estimated the death toll at upwards of 186,000 people — a figure that may now be significantly higher. 

Now is the moment to act — to secure justice for Palestinians and join the struggle for Palestinian liberation. 

Background: A hundred years of brutality and ethnic cleansing 

The fateful events of October 7, 2023, were a symptom of over a century of oppression, dispossession, and slaughter of Palestinians at the hands of the Zionist state and its imperial backers.  

1917: The Balfour Declaration  

• Arthur Balfour declared British support for a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine, despite having no legitimate claim to the land. Britain then facilitated a period of mass migration of European Jews to Palestine, gradually displacing the indigenous population. Palestinians faced discrimination and violent suppression, culminating in the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt, which the British crushed with mass arrests, executions, and destruction of villages. 

1947-48: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine  

• Following the rejection of the 1947 UN partition plan, the Zionists implemented their long-held plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its native population. In 1948, Zionist terrorist groups launched a coordinated attack on defenceless villages, leading to the mass expulsion of approximately 750,000 Palestinians, known as the Nakba ("catastrophe"). Hundreds of villages were destroyed, countless men were executed, and Palestinian refugees were denied the right to return.  

1967-2007: The Military Occupation of Palestine 

• The 1967 Six-Day War resulted in Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, displacing hundreds of thousands more and establishing a system of apartheid. Illegal Israeli settlements expanded rapidly in the West Bank and Jerusalem, further eroding Palestinian land and sovereignty. This military occupation imposed draconian restrictions on movement, economic hardship, and daily violence against Palestinians. 

2007-2023: “Mowing the Lawn” in Gaza 

• After Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, Israel imposed a brutal blockade, severely restricting movement, trade, and access to water, fuel, electricity or basic necessities. This effectively transformed the Gaza Strip—30 miles long and 5 miles wide—into the world’s largest open-air prison. The suffocating siege was reinforced by periodic assaults (2008–2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021), euphemistically termed "mowing the lawn", resulting in thousands of Palestinian deaths and extensive destruction. 

October 2023-present: The Gaza Holocaust 

• This unbearable status quo created a tinder box of rampant aggression, daily humiliation, and enforced deprivation, leading to an eruption on October 7 2023—Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The global attention paid to the violence on that day serves only to emphasise the decades of international indifference to Israel's systemic oppression and egregious violence against Palestinians.