*Statement written by Federico Dertaube and Víctor Artavia.

Translated by Cristopher Vallecillo Gómez

The fight to stop this is a major democratic task on an international level. Israel has launched a new offensive, “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” aiming to turn the Gaza Strip into a concentration camp, trapping hundreds of thousands of human beings in areas where life is simply unlivable.

Since last Wednesday, the 14th, the Israeli military has escalated the massacre and begun its new assault on Gaza. Just that day alone, the attacks killed 120 people.

A campaign of cleansing and occupation

These numbers are chilling. But they were only the beginning of a new bombing campaign that has already claimed the lives of hundreds of people, including a large number of children.

In total, the Zionist army bombed 670 targets, claiming they were «used by Hamas» and other Gazan resistance groups. This version doesn’t match reality, since the vast majority of the victims were civilians hit by the bombings, most of whom live in tents.

These actions are part of «Operation Gideon’s Chariots,» which is itself part of the plan known as «Phase 3: The Complete Capture of Gaza.»

As its name suggests, this offensive aims to secure full control and occupation of the entire Gaza Strip, carrying out a massacre in the process. That’s why the Zionist military authorities have ordered the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the south of the territory, and, following the classic logic of concentration camps, are relocating them to designated encampments.

Netanyahu and his far-right cabinet are already openly talking about the ethnic cleansing they want to carry out in order to colonize the enclave.

This is precisely what Israel aims to achieve with its ongoing military operation. The objective is to confine the population to three strips of land completely controlled by the Israeli army, which would be separated by four occupied zones. Civilians would be prohibited from moving between these areas and would be required to use photo IDs or barcodes to access food distribution centers.

This is precisely what Israel aims to achieve with its ongoing military operation. The objective is to confine the population to three strips of land completely controlled by the Israeli army, which would be separated by four occupied zones. Civilians would be prohibited from moving between these areas and would be required to use photo IDs or barcodes to access food distribution centers.

Meanwhile, Trump reiterated his intention to take control of Gaza after the ethnic cleansing of the Strip is carried out.

Famine and humanitarian catastrophe

In addition to the death and destruction caused by military attacks on a completely defenseless civilian population, the Zionist government has imposed a criminal total blockade on the territory, preventing any kind of humanitarian aid from entering since March 18.

This has triggered a catastrophic and escalating humanitarian crisis that has been unfolding since October 2023, to the point where the entire population of Gaza, 2.4 million people, is now threatened by mass starvation on a scale comparable to the worst barbarism of the past century. According to Human Rights Watch, this confirms that Israel is literally using the blockade as a tool of extermination against the population of Gaza.

Photos of emaciated children sparked outrage worldwide. Immediately, comparisons began circulating with images from Nazi concentration camps. The perpetrators of the massacre in Gaza are the closest thing to Nazism in our time.

Netanyahu cynically promised to partially ease the blockade for diplomatic reasons not humanitarian ones. However, when it came time to allow humanitarian aid in, the Zionist troops let through only nine trucks. It’s a drop in the ocean. It is estimated that about 500 trucks per day are needed to meet the basic needs of the Palestinian population.

Netanyahu: a fascist government

Nineteen months ago, the Zionist offensive against the Gaza population began, subjected since then to unprecedented barbarity in recent decades. At the time of writing this article, it is estimated that more than 53,000 people have been killed by the Israeli armed forces, and over 100,000 injured, the vast majority of them civilians.

Israel is applying the same tactics of ethnic cleansing, and even extermination against the Gaza population, as the Nazis used against European Jews.

The cabinet in power, led by Netanyahu, is a fascist government, and the escalation in extermination plans exposes it completely. This is not more of the same, they are seriously attempting to carry out to the end the plans for a racially “pure” Israel, putting an end to the existence of the Palestinian people. We do not throw around the accusation of “fascism” lightly. Not every far-right government is directly “fascist,” but Netanyahu’s Israeli government is increasingly and clearly fascist, uncomfortably coexisting with the increasingly hollowed-out “democratic” institutions of the Zionist state.

The State of Israel is a colonial and racist state regardless of who governs it. However, we are facing the most brutal and reactionary version of it in memory in recent decades.

The creation of a «Jewish state» on land with a non-Jewish majority has meant that from its very inception. Although it is presented as a «right to self-determination,» the facts speak for themselves. This colonial project has coexisted with various forms of racial exclusion and segregation of the native Palestinian population, and has produced figures with bloodstained hands like Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon, and now Netanyahu along with a key part of his cabinet.

Given the colonial and ethnic cleansing nature of the State of Israel, it was clear from the start that the Oslo Accords on the “two-state solution” were completely unfeasible. In the face of the horror of the Palestinian massacre, several EU countries now want to revive those accords. However, any solution involving the Palestinian people that is not the creation of a single, democratic, and non-racist Palestine is a reactionary utopia.

Zionism, although it may seem contradictory at first glance (and despite this being little known to the wider international public), has a long history of symbiotic relations with fascism, even before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 with the first ethnic cleansing of the Nakba. It is in colonialism and its racist ideology that Zionism and fascism find their common historical roots. In the nineteenth century, the fight against antisemitism in Europe was mostly carried out under democratic, anti-racist, and socialist banners. Zionism was the tendency that, shamefully, adopted ideological aspects of the colonial masters of the great powers and sought their support. Its most radical wing collaborated with and directly sympathized with fascism.

The «Revisionist Zionism» founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky established the Betar groups and its paramilitary wing, the Irgun, emulating the Blackshirts. They were allies of Petliura’s government in Ukraine, which organized antisemitic pogroms, fighting against the Bolsheviks. They collaborated with and had the support of Mussolini, breaking with him only in 1936 when Fascist Italy formalized its alliance with Nazi Germany. During World War II, a wing of the Irgun split off to form the Lehi, which tried to approach Hitler to reach an agreement to deport European Jews to Palestine. Both the Irgun and Lehi were incorporated into the Zionist army after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. No, it is not contradictory in any way to call an Israeli government fascist: Likud, Netanyahu’s party, precisely comes from Jabotinsky’s “Revisionist Zionism.”

But it is not enough to point out the common historical and ideological roots to label a government as “fascist.” Likud had long been a “conservative” party of the Israeli establishment. Its previous cabinets were the extreme wing of an already colonial and racist project. However, the nature of its governments changed in 2022. That year, Netanyahu brought into his government two figures who until then had been excluded from any government: Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich represent the most violent «civil» wing of Israeli society: the new settlers, now directly integrated into power. Tel Aviv has been the cosmopolitan center of the Zionist state for decades. The city can show a supposedly more «modern» and less racist face (even «gay friendly») because the Palestinian population was displaced from there many decades ago. Most of its inhabitants have no need to see Palestinians in their daily lives, although that does not mean that cities like Tel Aviv lack political nuances and divisions.

In this context, the settler communities represent the far right of the Zionist population. They are population centers actively involved in the displacement and daily violence against Palestinians. They form the «border zone» in the West Bank and along the Gaza border, actively carrying out the displacement of Palestinians and living their daily lives as civilian shock groups. They have always had the state’s backing, and now they have been directly integrated into power.

The rise to power of Netanyahu’s current government in 2022 accelerated events. The October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas was a response soaked in blood and mud to the even greater blood and mud that had been imposed daily on the people of Gaza. Our position from day one has been one of unconditional support for the Palestinian people, even though we do not share Hamas’s program or methods.

Netanyahu’s cynicism is so extreme that practically anyone capable of thinking can see his disregard for the Israeli hostages in Gaza. The very purpose of this cabinet is the genocide of the Palestinian people. The regime’s authoritarian shift, including the controversial judicial reform, is a continuation of that project.

Israel’s allies in Western imperialism, especially in Europe, are finding it increasingly impossible to portray it as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” But there is nothing democratic about a state that imposes its “majority” through blood and fire while excluding the native Palestinian population from citizenship and every basic right to exist. There can be no democracy in a supremacist ethno-state project.

Down with the transformation of Gaza into a concentration camp

International mobilization to stop the genocide

From the very beginning of the current campaign of extermination in late 2023, international solidarity took center stage with the largest wave of democratic and anti-imperialist popular organization and mobilization since the Vietnam War. The efforts of the international struggle against the genocide are not in vain, and the political consequences are increasingly clear: the Zionist state is becoming more and more isolated and discredited.

Israel has long been a historic ally of the United States, a colonial outpost that defends its interests in the Middle East. Today, the U.S. is the international epicenter of reaction, with the Trump administration at the helm. Part of the current wave of deportations includes those who dare to question the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, as seen in the outrageous expulsion of activists from universities. Solidarity with Palestine, opposition to Trumpist anti-immigrant racism, and resistance to the persecution of students who defend the Palestinian cause have naturally become one and the same struggle.

European governments, for their part, are facing growing pressure from the horrifying images of the genocide. While a year ago they tried to ban pro-Palestinian demonstrations by labeling them as “antisemitic”, today the European Union is reviewing its trade and diplomatic agreements with Israel. At the same time, boycotts and strikes have managed to slow or even stop some arms shipments.

The wave of international youth mobilization in the 60s and 70s was key to defeating imperialism in Vietnam. The global boycott was crucial to ending the apartheid regime in South Africa. Anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and anti-fascist solidarity can become a popular cause and stop the genocidal catastrophe in Palestine.

Palestinian liberation from the Zionist and imperialist yoke is one of humanity’s main tasks in this 21st century. The flag we raise now more than ever is for a free, socialist, democratic, and non-racist Palestine.