Photo: Paul Mattsson
Photo: Paul Mattsson

Joe Fathallah, Cardiff West Socialist Party

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have walked miles, allowed to return to the site of their homes in the north of the Strip, where much of what remains is rubble. The gates were opened as part of negotiations from the ceasefire that finally took effect on 19 January, after over 15 months of devastating war, during which around 65,000 Palestinians have been killed.

The move came hours after US President Donald Trump told reporters the whole population of Gaza could be “cleaned out”, and relocated to neighbouring Egypt and Jordan. The threat of a new Nakba – the forced evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land in 1948 – will provoke fury among millions across the Middle East.

The timing of the ceasefire agreement to coincide with Trump’s inauguration meant he was able to try to take some credit. It is abundantly clear his interests have nothing in common with ordinary Palestinians. Among his first executive orders was to lift sanctions on violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, albeit token sanctions introduced by the Biden administration. In fact it appears likely that the ceasefire agreement included the US giving Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu the green light to step up military operations in the West Bank.

Trump’s inflammatory remarks are yet another striking example of the volatility of his presidency. If a strategic aim of his administration is to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, that will be made harder. The Saudi regime will feel the pressure from its population, sympathetic with the Palestinian cause, not to be seen as complicit with the crimes of Israeli and US capitalism.

Since the ceasefire began, Israeli forces have raided the refugee camp in Jenin, in the West Bank, where at least 12 Palestinians have been killed to date. In Gaza itself, at least two Palestinians have been shot and killed by Israeli tanks too. And the Israeli government has voted to block the United Nations aid programme UNRWA from operating in Gaza, where the population remains in desperate need.

The Palestinians are still denied the right to their own state. Almost the whole population of Gaza is now homeless and hungry. These people cannot wait to see if the ceasefire agreement plays out as planned, and then there is the question of what future for Gaza, the West Bank and the Palestinians. We demand an immediate end to the war and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and other occupied territories. This means keeping up the international pressure, especially against governments and companies supplying weapons to the Israeli forces.

On the basis of capitalism, there can be no lasting solution which guarantees peace and the national rights of the Palestinians. This will require mass struggle, and the development of independent working-class parties in Palestine, Israel, and all countries in the region. The first intifada, a mass uprising lasting from 1987 until 1993, showed how ordinary Palestinians could organise independently of their ruling elites and effectively resist the repression of the Israeli state. These traditions can be built on in the coming period, towards achieving an independent socialist Palestine, alongside a socialist Israel, laying the ground for an end to national conflict, war and poverty.