Israel and its defenders argue that the bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza are about “destroying Hamas”. But this is not the first time Israel has conducted such a campaign—the history of the Zionist state is one of permanent war against the Palestinians. Israel committed countless assaults on the Palestinians well before the formation of Hamas in 1987.
The struggle against Israeli apartheid in the West Bank faces its greatest obstacle in the people who claim to be its legitimate representatives: the Palestinian Authority (PA). Through the so-called peace process that created the PA—the Oslo Accords signed by Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin between 1993 and 1995—the nationalist project of constructing an independent Palestinian state in the occupied territories was transformed into a new means of Palestinian oppression.
Millions of people across the Arab world have joined demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza. Mass demonstrations have taken place in Iran, Iraq, Tunisia, Yemen and Qatar. In Damascus, Syria, Palestinians from the Yarmouk camp rallied in support of their compatriots in Gaza.
Two years after seizing power in a coup, Min Aung Hlaing’s junta in Myanmar continues to be ensnared in a civil war that shows no signs of abating.
Video footage from late December shows elderly patients infected with COVID-19 on stretchers receiving oxygen stored in large blue bottles. They are being treated on the road outside the emergency department of Zhongshan Hospital, one of the largest in Shanghai.
Video footage shows a crowd of students at Tsinghua University in Beijing holding up blank pieces of paper and chanting, “Democracy, rule of law, freedom of expression!” Through a loudspeaker, a young woman can be heard in the background shouting: “If because we are afraid of being arrested, we don’t speak, I believe our people will be disappointed in us. As a Tsinghua student, I will regret this my entire life!”