11th Anniversary of “Gaza Day”

Today is the 11th anniversary of “Gaza Day”, declared by the Iranian Majlis (parliament) on 19th January 2009, a day after the 22-day heroic resistance of the Palestinian people forced the illegal Zionist entity to end its unprovoked aggression on the besieged self-governing 365 square km strip on the eastern Mediterranean coast of the Levant.

Stay with us please for an article on the latest situation in Gaza, whose two million people are under the illegal siege of Israel and its godfather, the U.S., while Egypt which shares a 12 km long border with the Palestinian strip, has been forced by Washington and Tel Aviv to seal it.

The 41 km long Gaza Strip, which over the past few days has again been subjected to aerial raids by Israel, was way back in 1948 placed under the authority of Egypt by the UN on the illegitimate birth of Israel on Palestinian soil following two decades of British occupation. In the 1967 war, Gaza was occupied by the invading Zionist army, which ended its 38-year long occupation in 2005. In the general elections held in 2006 in the Palestinian self-governing territories, including Gaza and the West Bank, the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, won 74 of the 132 seats in the legislature to form the government. The Fatah movement of Mahmoud Abbas, the self-styled president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), having lost the elections, connived with Israel for the arrest and detention of MPs and cabinet ministers, thus paralyzing the Hamas-led government and making it dysfunctional. As a result, the elected government was confined to the Gaza Strip, which was immediately blockaded by the Zionist regime, following Washington’s branding of Hamas as ‘terrorist’ and stopping Gaza all American aid in an effort to trigger the downfall of the government. Thanks, however, to the support of the Palestinian people, this did not happen, and towards the end of December 2008 Israel launched an air and land attack. Though outgunned in terms of sophisticated weaponry, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other freedom-loving groups, with the support of the Palestinian people, put up a strong defence, responding with a barrage of rockets that inflicted great damage on Israel and forced it to sue for peace. This was the first instance of the Zionist regime’s failure against the Palestinians. Two years earlier in 2006, the myth of Israel’s military invincibility was shattered in the 33-day war by Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorist movement, the Hezbollah.

The usurper Zionist regime has violently suppressed Gazans, tightening its restrictions time to time, and resorting to criminal bombing of the Palestinian people. Its 22-day war that ended on January 18 in 2009, led to the martyrdom of 1450 Palestinians, and injury of over 5,000, and is known as the “Gaza Massacre”.  In 2012, Israel again attacked Gaza, but because of the stiff resistance of the Palestinian people and their barrage of improvised rockets, it sued for peace after 8 days, as Zionist casualties mounted. The Palestinian casualty toll was 163 martyred and 1,300 injured. On 8^th July 2014 the rancorous regime again attacked Gaza and during 51 days of bombardment it failed to dent the resolve of the Palestinian people, who offered 2158 martyrs, besides injury to 11,000 others, in defence of their besieged homeland. Israel inflicted a devastating blow on the infrastructure. In May 2019, Israel again launched aerial attacks on Gaza and its people, but faced with the rocket power of the defenders, it sued for peace after only 4 days. Some 30 Palestinians, including two women and a 14-month-old child attained martyrdom, while 170 others sustained injuries.

Sporadic Zionists air raids continued throughout 2019, and according to sources, a total of 149 Palestinians were martyred last year including 33 children.

The year that went by marked the 13^th year of the siege of Gaza, whose economy has worsened, because of the indifference of the oil rich Arab states to the Palestinian cause. As a result at least 250,000 Gazans are unemployed, while 85% of Gazans live under the poverty line. At the same time, the restrictions on imports and exports, has meant a 20 percent drop in the output of factories and the activities of many economic centers have come to a halt.

According to an informed official, the overall direct and indirect damages suffered by the economy of Gaza Strip as the consequence of siege, totaled roughly $100 million per month in the closing months of 2019. At the same time, homes that were destroyed by the Zionist forces are yet to be rebuilt.

Furthermore, according to head of Palestine Industries Union, more than 520 factories have shut down in Gaza Strip in 2019 as the result of siege and thousands of workers have lost their jobs. The textile industry has been hit the hardest.

Moreover, the siege of Gaza Strip has caused a severe shortage of medicine and food, and has led to unwanted death of patients, while threatening the lives of thousands of other patients.

In addition to imposing wars, and besieging Gaza, Zionist mercenaries have resorted to assassination of Palestinian commanders, including the target-killing of a leader of Islamic Jihad in November 2019.

Meanwhile, there are two points of importance about the developments unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Firstly, the illegal Zionist regime commits its horrific crimes against Gazans with the support of the US regime. The terrorist Donald Trump blindly backs the illegal Zionist entity because of his hatred of Islam and Muslims, as part of the ‘conspiracy of century’, which he shamelessly calls ‘deal of the century. Trump, who is supported by the reactionary Arab regimes, also backs the construction of illegal Zionist settlements in the occupied Islamic city of Bayt al-Moqaddas which the West calls Jerusalem.

Secondly, despite of siege of Gaza Strip; the defensive and deterrent power of resistance groups has significantly increased. During the May 2019 4-day war imposed by Zionist forces on Gaza Strip; the resistance groups fired 650 missiles on the 1948 occupied territories, making Israel sue for peace. Despite grappling with hardships, the indomitable people of Gaza, are resolved to continue their resistance against the Zionist regime.

Undoubtedly, if Palestinian groups set aside their political differences and reach a consensus; they will greatly increase their power to deter usurper Israel from attacking the Gaza Strip.

MR/AS/SS