October 7 2024 marks one year of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. While October 7 will be used to mark day, the occupation, displacement and colonisation of the Palestinian people by Zionist Israel started a long time ago.
This didn’t start on October 7. But we all know that.
By Fatima Moosa
We could probably go further back to 1917 and the Balfour Declaration when Britain committed to the creation of a national Jewish homeland by erasing Palestinians completely
Or May 1948 when the Nakba (Catastrophe) took place with the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land and the subsequent wide scale theft of Palestinian land and property left behind by the refugees
or 1967 where Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including East Jerusalem, which was subsequently annexed by Israel.
Or 2014 when Israel killed 2 251 Palestinians during 50 days of bombing or 2021 when forced removals in Sheikh Jarrah triggered protests in Gaza leading to over 200 Palestinians being killed.
And now October 2024 marks one year of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Occupation, settler-colonisation, destruction and stealing of land, checkpoints, humanitarian catastrophe, complete disregard of human, plant and animal life, war and now genocide…
Israel’s list of crimes stretches long with no end and with complete impunity from the powers of the world including their main supporters the United States of America and the Western powers.
Gaza. For the past eleven months, the tiny strip of land has been bombed continuously day and night by Israel – supported by its allies. Homes, schools, hospitals, universities, food markets, shops, administration buildings, media offices, humanitarian organisations, refugee tents… nothing has been spared. All cruelly and violently destroyed by the Israeli apartheid state in an attempt to eradicate the entire population of Gaza.
Gaza has always been a target since the early 1900s when the British imperial forces fought against Palestine. From the Nakba in 1948, the Gaza Strip has been the centre of the resistance of Palestinians after their dispossession. Many of the leaders of the political movements from Fatah to the PLO emerged from the tiny piece of coastal land. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement was born in Gaza and it remains the movement’s stronghold.
Gaza. A tiny piece of land that has faced so many assaults and attacks from the Zionist Israeli state. It consists of five governorates: North Gaza, Gaza City, Deir el-Balah, Khan Younis, and Rafah. It is bordered on one side by Egypt and the other by the illegal Israeli state. The entire strip is about 365 square kilometres and only 41 km long. It would take less than an hour to drive from Rafah in the south to Beit Hanoon in the north. To be into perspective, Johannesburg is about nine times larger than Gaza. Gaza’s length would be the distance between Soweto and OR Tambo International Airport, and its width about the distance between Braamfontein and Rosebank.
The hostages. The hostages. The hostages. Israel’s propaganda machine, Hasbara has worked overtime over the past year trying to convince the world and maybe itself as well that the hostages are the reason why it continues to destroy Gaza and its people and history. Yet Israel has killed more of its hostages in the past year than Hamas has through its continual bombardment of Gaza.
Sumud. This represents the people of Palestine. It means resistance and endurance but it is so much more than that. It is the individual and collective awareness that all Palestinians have to fight for justice and to continue the struggle against Israeli colonisation and occupation. Sumud is the Palestinian child growing flowers in gas canisters. It is the doctors of Al-Shifa trying to rebuild the completely destroyed hospital. It is the people going back to their bombed houses and trying to clean and rebuild. Sumud is resilience and perseverance. It is the Palestinian people resisting every day for 76 years.
How to describe the devastation?
Words are just not adequate.
Palestinian journalist Youmna Al-Saeed on a visit to South Africa told audiences that you have the option to stop watching the video or the news but for the child who has lost their entire family, lost their homes and safety and even limbs, there is no end. The horrors continue long after we have switched off our phones and go back to our safe and comfortable lives.
October 8 marks one year of the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. There is no end in sight with US support for Israel continuing and increasing as the days go by. The official numbers say 40 000 murdered but with all the administrative abilities in Gaza being permanently destroyed, the actual picture of the devastation is likely to be much higher and beyond anything we could imagine.
#GazaKitchen: The situation in the North of Gaza (Explained)
Even if the bombing stops and the crossings open and aid is allowed into Gaza, the devastation will remain. The many tens of thousands of those who were killed and remain under the rubble of their houses. The families who have been separated. The terrible injuries that the young and the old have suffered. The lost school year. The entire area and areas of Gaza which will need to be rebuilt. The generations of families which have been destroyed. It’s difficult to think of the end of the genocide. It’s even more difficult to imagine how Gaza will be rebuilt.
It will end when the occupation ends. When Israel stops flouting international law and basic humanity. But it will end.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
A timeline of Palestinian history under occupation
1917: Balfour declaration where Britain committed to the creation of a national Jewish homeland by erasing the existence of Palestine and Palestinians completely
1948: Nakba when Palestinians were systematically ethnically cleansed from their land by the Zionists who then stole all the Palestinian land left behind by the refugees as well as the Palestinians living in Israel
1967: Following the defeat of the Arab countries during the Six-Day War, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including East Jerusalem, which was subsequently illegally annexed by Israel.
1982: In 1982, the Sabra and Shatila massacre took place when right-wing Lebanese militia, in coordination with the Israeli army attacked Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp, and the adjacent neighbourhood of Sabra in Beirut. The refugees were victims of the 1948 Nakba. Between 2,000 and 3,500 people were killed.
1987: The First Intifada took place in 1987 and was a sustained series of protests, acts of civil disobedience and riots carried out by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and Israel.
2000/5: The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against the Israeli occupation. It began after Israel constructed the West Bank barrier and Israel initiated the Gaza disengagement plan. In 2006, Hamas won the majority of seats in a Palestinian legislative election leading to the start of the ongoing land, sea and air blockade of Gaza.
2008: Israel launched a 22-day military offensive in Gaza. This was after rockets were fired at the southern Israeli town of Sderot. About 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis killed before a ceasefire is agreed upon.
2014: The kidnap and killing of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas leads to a seven-week war in which more than 2100 Palestinians are killed in Gaza along with 73 Israelis, including 67 soldiers.
2018: The peaceful March of Return took place in March 2018 where Palestinians protested at Gaza’s fended border with Israel. More than 170 Palestinians killed in several months of protests.
2021: After Israel ordered six Palestinian families to leave their homes in Sheikh Jarrah on May 2 2021 to make way for Jewish settlers, mass protests began in Sheikh Jarrah and Jerusalem. Hamas demanded Israel withdraw security forces from the Al Aqsa Masjid compound. Israel launched air raids on Gaza in response to what it said were rockets fired from Gaza. In the fighting that went on for 11 days, at least 260 people were killed in Gaza and 13 died in Israel.
