On October 7, 2023 Hamas launched an unprecedented multi-faceted and sustained assault on Israel from Gaza Strip. Since then, Israel has launched a brutal and vicious attack on about 1.1 million Gazan population who had already been living under a brutal military siege. At the time of writing this statement, there were credible reports in the media suggesting that Israel had cut off electricity, water and food supply for an already traumatized population. It had ordered northern Gaza residents to flee to the South. To make matters worse, Egypt has also closed its sides of the border.
Most residents of Gaza are descendants of refugees of the Nakba. This might be the second biggest act of population transfer and ethnic cleansing in Palestine’s history with multiple episodes of the same. Israel has been bombarding Gaza relentlessly with credible reports suggesting the use of white phosphorus. If that was not enough, there is also a sustained disinformation campaign that has been waged against Hamas and Palestinians on social media.
India which had a long history of supporting Palestinian people shamefully sided with the Occupying forces within hours of attack by Hamas. There were no statements issued to condemn the longest military Occupation in modern history and the siege that made a million people live in an open-air prison. After public outcry and a better assessment of sentiments in the Global South, the Indian government did walk back on its initial statement with an oft-repeated but now meaningless statement of supporting an independent Palestine. The anchors of the mainstream Indian media who could not move out of their studios to cover the ongoing ethnic violence in the north-eastern state which now enters its fifth month, travelled to Israel and are shamefully presenting an ongoing genocide as nothing but a turf-war. The Western media is no better.
One may ask what exactly would it take for these media houses to get an education in international law, history, or even common decency? The streets might teach them more than any Ivy League college ever did. And the streets have spoken for Palestinians in an unprecedented support for Palestinian lives. The information about what had happened with Palestinians and what is happening with them is easily available on the internet. Ignorance is not a condition. It is a choice.
Settler colonialism itself is a war. Siege is a war. Israel had been waging a brutal war against Palestinian people since its very inception. Hamas’ attack proves that the Occupation and siege are unsustainable. It asks people of conscience to take a hard long look at how their brethren in another part of the world are being treated. It asks to hold ourselves accountable.
The Indo-Palestine Solidarity Network (IPSN) of likeminded people drawn from all parts of the country is committed to justice and freedom for Palestine. We seek an end to the racist- colonialist- apartheid politics of Israel through which Israel’s Occupation of Palestinians and their lands have continued for the last 56 years. At this time of the brutal and unconscionable war on the suffering people of Gaza who are being bombed mercilessly with nowhere to go, and at the same time having food, water, fuel and power cut off we reiterate our commitment to the long-suffering but resilient Palestinian people. IPSN demands the indictment of Israel by theInternational Community for attempted genocide in addition to the other war crimes.
We also, at this critical time, urge the Indian government to revisit its official stand with respect to the hundred-year war on Palestine. It needs to reaffirm the historical stand that it maintained during the Non-Alignment Movement where it maintained a morally righteous decision of denouncing Israel’s many war crimes and siding with the Palestinian people. We once again urge the International community to come together in pressuring Israel to stop its onslaught on Gaza, and end its military occupation and siege.
7 October 2023