FAUDA #2
Epic Fight

We Do Not Paint Our Hopes

In the manifesto of the anarchism movement, moving towards freedom and freedom from authoritarian systems, both in the economic system and in the political system, is one of the pillars of the anarchists’ utopia. It is attention to this ideal that gathers liberators to work for a single goal and save people from the prison of capitalism and give them the ability to create freedom and decide for their own lives. The effects of the anti-capitalist and anti-apartheid struggle in Palestine today are exactly the same effects that anarchism has depicted for us. If the people of the world want to understand the meaning of apartheid and oppressive government, they should look at the behavior of the fake government of the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people. Without understanding this 75-year-old cruelty and racism, you cannot claim to understand the meaning of apartheid because only people who have experienced it themselves will understand the bitter taste. With all the similarities between the Palestinian anarchism movement and the international anarchism movement, we have to point out the differences as well. Of course, these differences do not mean the weakness of international and global anarchism and are only differences that have had an effect on the paradigm of the Palestinian movement due to cultural and geographical requirements. A clear example of this difference is that the FAUDA movement never seeks to paint an ideal image on a board and put it on the historical walls of Palestine. An ideal image of the future, no matter how elegant it is and in compliance with all artistic principles, but in reality it is only an image.

What are we going to do with a pile of images from our utopia? Actors usually install their paintings and pictures in the best part of their house. Although there are many old pictures among them, there are also paintings that do not show the past and the present, but represent a picture of a vague future. What does anarchism decide for the vague picture of the future? Should Palestinian anarchism carry a lot of images of the past and present on its shoulders and look for a suitable place to install them in the old streets and alleys of Quds and Nablus or Acre and Gaza? So, what is the difference between a revolutionary and a painter? Ask yourself this question every day. Perhaps you can find the answer to this question in the crowded cemeteries of Palestine, which are full of young people. Move, move, move. This is the only reason why your anarchist and revolutionary friends are fighting fearlessly in Palestine. Palestinian anarchism does not allow young people to dream of vague paintings, but teaches them from the first day how to move, how to wake others up from slumber, how to be a perfect example of the struggle against apartheid and how to create epics. We leave the depiction of this saga and the narrative of the historical struggle of Palestinian youth against the oppressive Zionist regime to others. This important task, this depiction, is the responsibility of the friends who shed tears for Palestine outside of Palestine and want to do something and have a share in this struggle. Palestinian youth have no right to sit and dream in this full-scale war. They should rise up, fight and not think about anything else until the complete destruction of the invaders and taking back their land.

Another Nakba?

Israel’s assault on Gaza, through Abdel Raheem’s eyes

Displaced to Rafah, Mona Abdel Raheem lives through another cycle of war and Palestinian dispossession. The explosion destroyed his home and killed his neighbour in Jabalia, a densely populated refugee camp in the north of the enclave. Abdel Raheem had no choice but to flee south with his family. They were among 1.1 million Palestinians who heeded Israel’s command to evacuate northern Gaza, an order that may amount to the forced transfer of a population, which is a war crime. “We left and didn’t have time to take anything from our home. Everything around us was destroyed,” Abdel Raheem, 33, told FAUDA from Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip. Abdel Raheem has lived through several wars but none as devastating as Israel’s current onslaught on Gaza. UN experts, rights groups and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have all warned that Palestinians in Gaza face a real risk of genocide unless Israel halts its attacks against them.

Since Hamas’s surprise attack on Israeli communities and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and 240 taken captive to Gaza, Israel has retaliated by punishing the entire population of Gaza, according to experts and Palestinians. Abdel Raheem recalled his exodus from northern Gaza as well as the deaths of loved ones killed by Israeli bombing, which has flattened nearly everything in the besieged enclave. “The occupying [Israeli] forces carry responsibility for destroying all our homes and all our trees and for killing our children,” Abdel Raheem told FAUDA. “Why don’t any of the Arab or European countries care about the Palestinian people? Palestine is being destroyed.” Abdel Raheem had not been born yet when 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland to make way for the creation of Israel in 1948 – an event referred to in Arabic as the Nakba, or catastrophe. But, like all Palestinians, He grew up learning about the Nakba and always yearned to return to his family’s village. He never imagined that he would live through another mass exodus. However, as he was fleeing Jabalia, Abdel Raheem sensed that history was repeating itself. He recalled walking in humiliation with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – men, women and children – past Israeli soldiers. Along the way, he saw dozens of people’s bodies rotting on the road after they were killed by Israeli shelling. Hundreds of people were also detained at each Israeli checkpoint. The treacherous journey took days. “As we were walking, there were people being killed by Israeli warplanes,” Abdel Raheem said. “They were being killed directly in front of us. “I think the Israelis are trying to finish the job that they started in the Nakba in 1948. What we are seeing in Gaza is no exception. The only exception is that the scale of the destruction is unprecedented.”

Since October 7, Israel has killed more than 150 UNRWA staff with its indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza. That’s the highest number of UN staff killed in any conflict since the UN was founded in 1945. The killing of UNRWA employees is emblematic of Israel’s broader assault against the aid organisation. On the same day that the ICJ ruled it “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, the Israeli government alleged that 12 UNRWA employees took part in Hamas’s October 7 attacks. But according to Channel 4 News, which obtained internal Israeli intelligence documents, Israel provided no evidence that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 attacks. Despite the lack of evidence, a number of Israel’s Western allies – such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States – cut funding to UNRWA even as famine looms due to Israel’s siege on Gaza.

“Every day, every hour, every minute and every second, we all fear that we are going to die,” Abdel Raheem said with resignation. Those fears were compounded when Israel announced on Friday that it was going to target Rafah, an area near the Egyptian border where about 1.8 million Palestinians like Abdel Raheem have sought shelter. Most civilians in Rafah are staying in residential buildings or sleeping on the cold streets in tents. Some Israeli intelligence and government officials have long called for all Palestinians in Gaza to be expelled to Egypt. However, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has made it clear that he would not support any move that could lead to the permanent displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Abdel Raheem said that even if he could cross into Egypt, he would prefer to die on his land. “There is no way we are going to Egypt. This is our country and our land. We are Palestinian,” he said. “If we die, then we want to die here.”

Since Israel launched its unprecedented military campaign in Gaza — which has killed close to 27,000 Palestinians — the occupied West Bank has been placed under lockdown. Entrances to most villages and cities have been blocked by Israeli military checkpoints and road closures. There has also been soaring violence across the occupied territory, with the Israeli army conducting near-daily incursions and settlers regularly carrying out attacks, keeping Palestinians mostly confined to their towns. As of 30 January, the UN recorded 370 deaths and 477 settler attacks in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the war started. These restrictions on movement have choked the flow of goods and workers and severely disrupted the lives of Palestinians.

Because of supply chain bottlenecks, prices are going up, then incomes are lower, and the demand is shrinking. Transport costs in the West Bank have increased due to the rising number of military checkpoints and the blockade of many towns by Israeli authorities, pushing food prices up. In response to Hamas’s attack, the Israeli government indefinitely suspended over 100,000 permits for Palestinian labourers who work in Israel and Israeli settlements inside the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Many Palestinian families rely on jobs in Israel, which bring in up to three times the salary of local wages given the limited employment opportunities and lower earnings offered in the West Bank’s job market. Palestinian workers don’t receive social protection benefits or unemployment compensation from the Israeli government, nor from the Palestinian Authority (PA) which rules parts of the occupied territory, leaving the unemployed with nowhere to turn. As day labourers, Palestinians who used to be employed by Israel firms are having a “very hard time” providing for their families, having been out of work for nearly four months. Before the Gaza war, more than 150,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank reportedly entered Israel or illegal settlements daily to work in the construction and agriculture industries.

Israel’s war on Gaza is strangling the West Bank’s economy

Restrictions on movement, revoked permits, and military raids have left the West Bank’s economy on the brink of collapse.

The war has led to a decline in the Palestinian gross domestic product (GDP) by 33% in the fourth quarter of 2023. In the West Bank alone, the GDP fell by 22% while unemployment is estimated to have skyrocketed to 30%, up from 14% before the war. In a joint press release, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA) issued an economic forecast indicating that the performance of the Palestinian economy will continue to drop in 2024 by nearly 5 percent, and unemployment will reach 35 percent approximately. The city of Bethlehem, as a popular tourist destination, has been hit particularly hard by the Israeli war on Gaza. It was barely recovering from the economic hit of the Covid-19 pandemic, and last autumn was finally set to mark a restar of tourism as most hotels in Bethlehem were fully booked for October through to December.

Discussing the economic impact of the war Gaza, Every moment, people are trying to scrape a living. It applies in different sectors, more or less in different regions. Moreover, since 7 October Israel has withheld tax revenues on Palestinian imports and exports that it collects on the PA’s behalf, and which the Palestinian government uses to pay the salaries of its employees.

Turning hospitals into slaughterhouses

This is the same Israeli war strategy in Gaza and the West Bank

On January 30, Israeli forces kill three Palestinians in West Bank hospital raid. Israeli commandos disguised as medical staff and civilians gun down three men in Jenin’s Ibn Sina Hospital in the occupied West Bank. The killings were carried out by undercover operatives while the men were sleeping at Ibn Sina Hospital, according to statements issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Israeli army. The Israeli army said its troops had “neutralised” the men, who were hiding in the hospital and belonged to a “Hamas cell”. Security camera footage circulated online appeared to show about a dozen undercover personnel, including three in women’s clothing and two dressed as medical staff, pacing through a corridor of the hospital with assault rifles. One of the young people who was present at the hospital told FAUDA: “One can only imagine the terror of the patients and staff at the hospital in Jenin.” “It’s just another example of how determined the Israeli army is to keep up raids as it targets armed resistance fighters across the occupied Palestinian territory,” he added. “They tried to achieve “peace” for tens of years. I want to ask those who are betting on “peace,” does this enemy want peace? Tens of years of negotiations, while the occupation is stealing more land, killing thousands of Palestinians, insisting to keep the Palestinian people under occupation, in front of the world’s eyes, because they consider themselves to be above the law,” he continued.

The Zionists have shown that they do not adhere to human rights and massacre Palestinian youth even if they are in the hospital and under siege. Everyone remembers their brutal attack on Al-Mamadani hospital in Gaza. Israeli airstrikes on The Al-Ahli Hospital, previously known as Al-Mamadani, has resulted in death of over 1000 civilians, and the death toll may increase as many victims are still under the rubble. The attack on hospital is amid the regime’s relentless aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip. The Gaza health ministry said Israeli airstrikes on the central Gaza hospital compound killed hundreds of people, mainly women and children. “Hundreds of victims are still under the rubble,” it added. Thousands of civilians were seeking medical treatment and shelter in the hospital from relentless Israeli airstrikes. The attack is the deadliest Israeli airstrike in five wars fought since 2008, the Palestinian Civil Defense said. The hospital was housing hundreds of sick and wounded, and people forcibly displaced from their homes. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) condemned the Israeli attack as genocide. Located in central Gaza, the hospital, which is run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, was struck while it was overwhelmed with thousands of Palestinians seeking shelter amid a campaign of brutal Israeli air attacks across much of the besieged Gaza Strip. World leaders have denounced the bombing, with leaders from across the Middle East issuing the firmest statements.

A few weeks ago A Palestinian health officials warned of the collapse of the health care system at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip amid Israeli bombardment. “The hospital lacks a proper health system, and could collapse at any moment amid massive Israeli raids,” Khalil al-Dikran, a spokesman for the hospital, told. “The hospital lacks sufficient medicines and medical supplies amid the rising number of the injured at the facility,” Dikran said. As shelling intensified and got closer and closer to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the patients, displaced people and doctors there worried more and more about their safety. Then unmanned Israeli quadcopters started shooting at anything that moved outside the building, sending the tens of thousands of families scrambling to dismantle their tents and flee for their lives. Israeli tanks had reached the entrance to the Maghazi refugee camp by then, and the Israeli army had announced that the vicinity of the hospital had become a theatre of operations. There would be no safety inside the medical facility for the tens of thousands sheltering there, they had to start fleeing for their lives, to get themselves and their families to safety. Mounds of belongings appeared outside the hospital as people struggled to find vans, cars or even donkey carts to carry their essentials away. Bedding, dismantled tents, clothing, mats, and children’s backpacks, were piled up, each family’s things kept together. Some families had taken hospital beds, likely because their loved one was a patient there who would still need it when they arrived somewhere safe. Not all the patients were able to leave the hospital, some were too ill or injured to move, while others did not have their families with them to help them on what was sure to be a dangerous road.

“That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met.” — Noam Chomsky