Gaza Anniversary

One year of living under a war of Extermination.

Those who study how human populations react to crisis have observed many things. About two thirds of a typical population will be completely useless. Most will wait for someone else to tell them what to do, or for someone to rescue them.

When you have a serious calamity, where those in charge of government are incompetent to deal with a crisis situation, or are indifferent, or have even deliberately caused the situation, a lot of people will die. Some will try to deny there is any problem. Some will react hysterically.

Much depends on whether competent leaders arise, who the effected population can have confidence in. If it is clear that inadequate help, or no help, is coming, then how people deal with the situation with their own resources and abilities, largely determines their survival.

The people who try to adapt to the situation and wait for it to go away, will tend not to survive. The right response is to look for a way out of the situation. If that is not immediately possible, to try to remedy the situation.

The population of Gaza are a case study in human response to disaster. They react better than most populations because they already have some history of dealing with attempts to suppress and eliminate them. They have been dealing with the Zionists for one hundred years now.

The intentions of the Israeli government are very much genocidal. The religious Zionists are now firmly in control of Israeli government. For a century, these people have consistently massacred Palestinian people each and every time they have been able to get away with it.

The Zionists have been frustrated by their inability to eliminate the Palestinians and their claim to the land they were driven from. Rather than disperse throughout the Arab world, they have mostly sat in camps, waiting to be allowed to return.

They have had no choice. Most of them have had no means to go anywhere else. The countries where they sought refuge have no way of absorbing them.

Even among the Palestinians living under Israeli control, their birth rate has created a population crisis for the Zionists. They are again becoming the majority. Thus, the thinking of the extreme Zionists has moved toward creating conditions for another mass extermination of Palestinians under their control.

The Zios do not have the power to do it by themselves. They need the support of the Atlanticist hegemony who created Israel. Why this dark force has such a commitment to the Zionist project is a mystery, and a subject for another blog post.

These powers had developed a strategy to completely isolate Palestinians and delegitimize their claim to the land of Israel. The Palestinians have huge support among Moslem populations worldwide. However, most of these countries are ruled by small elites, allied to the western hegemony, who despise the Palestinians.

Palestine has been represented by corrupt and incompetent false leaders, set up by the occupying power. Legitimate resistance groups are isolated in enclaves. It is mostly the Palestinian diaspora in western countries which has given voice to the Palestinian cause.

This cause seemed to have been quieted down in recent years. The Arab monarchies decided it was safe to fully normalize relations with Israel, and withdraw recognition from Palestine. For the Gazans in particular, this would have led to a gradual reduction and elimination of the aid which has kept them going for so many years.

Now, to a quick history of Gaza. The strip was formed at the end of the 1948 war, when the Egyptian army finally went on the attack against the Zionists. This saved the people who had fled to the camps around Gaza, escaping the murderous sadists and lunatics of the Irgun militia.

Then in 1967, Egypt was defeated in the six day war. Israel got control of the strip. At that time the labor Zionists, with a less homicidal attitude toward Palestinians, were in control of Israel.

After 1975, Israel withdrew from Sinai, but Egypt refused to take Gaza back. Israel tried the same trick as in the west bank. They established Jewish settlements among the Palestinians, to keep an eye on them and to gradually push them into separate little areas.

The Gazans had the advantage over the West Bank people, in that they had a coast and a border with Egypt. The Egyptian government did not like them, but they had plenty of friends on the Egypt side of the border. To defeat Israeli attempts to blockade them, they became skilled smugglers, and eventually, expert tunnelers.

Eventually the Jewish settlements were forced out of Gaza. So, in 2006, the Israeli government under Ariel Sharon tried a different approach. They created a buffer zone along the Egypt border, called the “Philedelphi corridor”. Nothing could go in or out of Gaza except through their checkpoints.

The Zionists were conducting an experiment to see if they could control Gaza by tightly controlling everything than went in and out. In 2008, Hamas was elected as the government of Gaza and started building up a defense force. It began firing its home made rockets into Israel to back up its demand for an end to the blockade.

The Israelis tried to reoccupy Gaza. They could not. Since then there has been cycles of Israeli raids into Gaza, and Hamas attacks out of it. The Israeli air force has kept bombing Gaza, destroying infrastructure, which Hamas has kept rebuilding.

The Gazan economy has been kept functioning by aid from United Nations agencies, donations from the Arab world, and trade through the tunnels under the border. Nonetheless, conditions have kept getting worse in Gaza. UN officials believe the strip will become uninhabitable in a generation due to contamination of the water supply.

So, by 2023 the Gazans had arrived at a situation where conditions were in place for their elimination. The Israelis are convinced that they can be moved into Egypt. Israel would continue to make the strip uninhabitable and eventually the Gazans would go away, or gradually die out.

The Israelis were finding ways to coopt the Gazan’s own voice, to have their stooges act as the Gazan’s voice. The world was being given the impression that they had come to accept their situation, and conditions were tolerable for them. Aid could gradually be withdrawn.

The operation of October 7th ‘kicked over the table’ and put Gazans back in control of their own narrative. It was done with the support of the new alliance against the Zionist state. The Gazans are not fighting alone.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force had been brilliant at getting the states under Zionist attack to unite and create a common “command room” and a “unity of squares.” Yemen and South Lebanon have committed to keep pressure on Israel until the attack on Gaza is stopped. Hamas contingents fight in Lebanon and some Hezbollah units from Lebanon are in Gaza.

Those who say that the Gazans have simply invited their own destruction do not know what they are talking about. They were being slowly destroyed anyway. They were in a situation where they could die slow on their knees, or fight back and die quick with a chance at survival.

So far it looks like Hamas’s action has indeed given Gaza a chance. The response of the religious Zionist coalition in Tel Aviv has been lunatic. They have totally destroyed their credibility in the world.

Israel’s economy is collapsing. The skilled people needed to run things are fleeing. Its military, despite unlimited support from the United States, is being defeated by Hamas and its allies, and is collapsing.

The Qassam brigades, and other fighting forces in Gaza, have held off Israel’s army and show no signs of weakening. The Gazan population seems to be learning how to survive under an attempt to exterminate them. They cannot keep it up forever, but it seems likely they will outlast the Zionist state.

But this is at a horrendous human cost. The Soviet Union in world war two lost eight percent of its total population. The Gazans have already lost about that, when all the deaths from disease, starvation, and infection are considered, and all those ‘missing’, meaning under a pile of rubble.

This could go on another year, though not much more than that. It is Israel which will break, not Gaza. However, by that time it is likely that a quarter of the Gaza population will have died.

The physical and emotional damage to Gazans will last through generations. But there is the possibility of a better life for the generation which comes after. So the Gazans survive and continue.

The best of them are focused on overcoming, not adapting, to the situation. The fools who wait for the United Nations to look after them are those most likely to die. It seems some Gazans do blame Hamas for the situation, whining that they have lost everything for nothing; a very near sighted and self focused attitude.

We may ponder what it is like, living in a confined area you cannot escape from, under a campaign of genocide from a technologically advanced military. There is a lot of information about this. We are in the electronic age. Gaza is called the first live streamed genocide.

The Gazans are finding ways to keep life going. The Israelis and their sympathizers are enraged that Gazans keep playing soccer and organizing schools in tents and bombed out ruins. A lot of them are still well and energetic, so they are getting food and water.

The Israelis have cut off all aid transports from Egypt. They mostly were not happening anyway as it was not safe for the truckers. The Israelis were shooting them randomly.

So food and other necessities has been coming in through Gaza’s now famous tunnel system. Egyptian officialdom dislikes Hamas, but they do not want an extermination on their border, and they are now furious at Israel. So, they are turning a blind eye to this traffic.

There are thought to be up to 200 tunnels under the Philidelphi. The Israelis have had no success in finding and destroying them. They have blown nine tunnels the Egyptians had found and blocked some time ago, but have kindly showed the Israelis their locations.

Gazans are finding water. They will have drilled new wells to replace those the Israelis bombed or filled with concrete. They have created improvised rain water cisterns all over.

Cooking has improved in Gaza. Fuel is getting in, and most people now have clay ovens, or even solar cookers. Fewer people are putting a pot between two bricks between a fire of scrap. Gazan trees are now safer.

And of course, while Israel has destroyed the electrical system, there are plenty of solar panels in Gaza. Through the wonders of modern technology, people without homes can still charge their devices. Of course they are careful about how they use them, considering Israeli tracking abilities.

Originally, Hamas did not allow civilian use of their tunnels. In a press conference at the start, one of their officials was asked why they did not let civilians shelter in their tunnels. His rather sarcastic reply was that the tunnels were for defense forces, and the United Nations was supposed to protect civilians.

The point has been made that the United Nations is not likely to do much for Gazan civilians, and so Hamas is starting to amend this policy. As well, the Israeli military has been especially eager to kill medical personnel and destroy hospitals. Thus, a system of underground emergency hospitals has been developing in Gaza, often staffed by foreign volunteers to replace the staff killed by Israel.

Israel seems to have introduced several diseases into Gaza. They are definitely responsible for the Polio outbreak. Polio had long been eliminated in Gaza. Now a Polio vaccination campaign has to be carried out with the Israeli army, as it does, randomly picking off parents and children trying to reach the vaccination centers.

Gazans have grown wise to the aims and methods the Israeli army. Going to where the Israelis announce that food is being distributed is usually to walk into a kill zone. To pick up food cans the Israelis drop off is usually to get your hand blown off.

Whatever the Israelis designate to be a safe zone, stay away from it. It is a good idea to keep moving around. Also, to stay inside the areas of Hamas control, where Hamas snipers can cover you.

The Israelis are very good at tracking people electronically. They do not want merely to locate Gazan defense forces people. They seem to want to get anyone who works for the Hamas Gazan government, from street sweepers on up.

They want to eliminate community leaders, even ones opposed to the Hamas government. Like true genociders, they want to get the natural leaders. They want to get their entire families.

They have developed advanced software to do this, with cute names like “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy”. The former collates information about everyone in Gaza, assigning them rankings according to their value as a target, and connecting them to home addresses. The latter piece of work is used to determine when the target will be at home with his family.

It would be interesting to know more on how the Gazans go about living under these conditions. We do not get so much video out of Gaza about this. It could help Israeli targeting of makeshift facilities of all kinds.

A population survives a genocide or other disaster when a core population survives. The children, the elderly, the ill, the foolish, usually die. When healthy, astute adults survive, especially women of child bearing age, the people can regenerate.

The core Gazan population seems likely to outlast the Israeli onslaught and survive. Israel will not be able to regenerate from this. Most of that population has somewhere else to go to. The run to the airports will only accelerate.

We do get a lot about how Gazans are fighting the Israeli army. There are three armed groups, who have adopted a joint command. The main one is the Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. There is also a group tied to Islamic Jihad, and there is a communist group.

These people have been fighting this kind of war for a generation. They are very good at it, despite their shortage of advanced equipment. They have also learned the importance of public relations.

Thus, they are good at producing videos showing how they fight. Several groups outside of Gaza are helping distribute these videos, and providing commentary on them. One of the best is “Electronic Intifada.”

However, EI does tend to act like Qassam groupies. I do not care for ‘war porn’. EI glorifies the Gazan fighters a little too much.

Yet we must admire the Gazan’s ingenuity in producing its own weapons. We can see the very brave Hamas fighter walk up behind an Israeli tank and clamp the locally made Shiwaz anti tank weapon onto it. We then watch the fireworks as he runs for cover.

We can watch the Gazan made “tandem charge” tank rocket produce similar fireworks. This is a unique Gazan invention which fires two charges at the tank. The first decoys the tank’s automatic defenses, and the second penetrates the armor.

We can watch the gunner hit the tank and then disappear back down the tunnel, shouting “ call the tow truck”. Alas, they can only damage the tank, not destroy it. The Israeli’s “tow truck” comes later to rescue the tank crew and tow the tank away to the repair shop.

The Qassams even use their own drones to reconnoiter the Israelis. They usually do not jam the Israeli drones because it would make their own “zananas” inoperable.

Another reality of life in Gaza is the near constant buzzing of “zananas”, drones, overhead. You want to keep an eye on them; especially the ones with weapons aboard. If one appears to be following you, then you want to get into the nearest bombed out building and then make your way out of the area.

It is said that a conventional army wins if it does not lose, and a guerrilla army wins if it survives. The Israeli army has not won. The Hamas forces have survived.

Now that Israel is moving most of its force to the Lebanon front, Hamas is on the attack. It is trying to force the Israelis out of the Netzarim and philedephi corridors.

The consistent refrain of interviewed Gazans is that the world seems to have forgotten them. Of course, the Gaza war has been in the news all over the world for a year. Large demonstrations continue, demanding an end to the genocide.

However, there is not much the world can do about it in the short term. The war is wrecking Israel, but its government does not seem to care. It is fanatically protected by the American establishment.

Several countries have come to the defense of Gaza and been attacked themselves. Gaza has allies, but they are not yet strong enough to force Israel to a truce. They are waging an attrition war, which they will eventually win, but at great cost to themselves.

They are up against an enemy with nuclear weapons. It is absolutely ruthless, willing to do anything they can get away with. It is technically very skilled, able to pull off things like the pager attack.

The Israelis have bumped off most of the senior leadership of Hezbollah in Lebanon. This is short term brilliant and long term stupid. A command group which can be penetrated like this needs to be replaced by more competent people.

The combat units of Hezbollah have been fighting the Israeli forces very effectively. Look for more dynamic leaders to come from there to replace the old command. Look for a post from me in the near future dealing with the Lebanon situation.

What the countries standing against Zionism are really fighting is the United States. The Americans will try to provide Israel unlimited support. However, with the other conflicts they are tied up with, and their growing economic crisis, America has limits.

Israel keeps trying to separate Gaza from the rest of the front; Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran. These countries remain adamant that the siege of Gaza must be lifted before any cease fire. China and Russia, also under threat from the Americans, are eager to provide material and technical support.

Now Israel has turned its fire on Lebanon. This fight has only begun. The Hezbollah army in South Lebanon has a big enough rocket force to destroy Israel if they really turned it loose.

The fight between Hezbollah and Israel has only begun. The strategies that can be employed in this conflict require a blog in itself. Israel may have got the first strikes in, taking out most of the top Hezbollah leadership. But Hezbollah has a very deep bench and Israel is still going to lose.

However, the real aim of Israel’s attack on Lebanon is to draw the United States in. Uncle Sam really does not need this right now, with the trouble he is having with Russia and China. The resistance front must be careful not to play into Netanyahu’s game of bringing in the American military.

So, it is really a very grim anniversary for Gazans. However, the second anniversary will likely be a bit brighter. By that time, Israel will be fully worn down. The alliance against them will have grown in power.

A slightly cheery note to end on is; several wealthy Moslem countries have now pledged billions of dollars to rebuild Gaza when the war is over. And it will not have to be rebuilt again. This will be the final war.