For almost a year, millions around the world have taken to the streets in order to fight against the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The imperialists and warmongers have been fighting against this mobilisation from the very first minute. In Europe and the USA, demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine have been prohibited, activists have been persecuted by police or suspended from their jobs, pro-Palestinian speakers have been banned from stating their opinion publicly, and the movement has been deprived from using necessary meeting rooms. Our comrades are also affected by this repression.

At least nine people were killed – including a 10-year-old girl – and over 2,800 injured, many of them left in a critical condition, when pagers they were carrying exploded, in an unprecedented coordinated attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon. American officials said Israel was behind the attack, which had been prepared for months and takes place as Netanyahu’s cabinet just voted to widen the war aims to include the return of those who had been displaced from the north of the country to their homes, which is code for launching an invasion of Lebanon. 

On Friday 6 September, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish-American activist was killed in cold blood by a sniper of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Eygi was sheltering from IDF provocations at a prayer session near the village of Beita in the West Bank, when she was shot in the head and killed.

The recovery of the dead bodies of six hostages, held by Hamas in Gaza, by the IDF over the weekend has led to an explosion of anger, directed against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hundreds of thousands came onto the streets on Sunday in mass demonstrations across Israel. The country was paralysed by a general strike called by Histadrut (the General Organisation of Workers in Israel) this morning, Monday 2 September. Protesters hold Netanyahu responsible for the death of the hostages, given his blatant and constant sabotage of the negotiations with Hamas. This is a very serious political crisis, which could lead to the removal of the Israeli PM. 

Since Kamala Harris entered the 2024 presidential race, the media has highlighted the alleged differences between her and Joe Biden’s rhetoric around Gaza, speculating about how she might differ from her current boss when it comes to the war on Gaza. They have noted a more “empathetic” tone toward Palestinians and a more “forceful” tone toward Israel.

“When the leaders speak of peace, the common people know that war is coming.” (Bertolt Brecht)

Recently, a figure of 186,000 projected deaths in Gaza has been circulating in the press and on social media. This horrifying death toll originated from a letter to The Lancet, the most prominent British medical journal, which the Israeli regime and its Western cheerleaders have attempted to discredit as baseless ‘blood libel’. In fact, when months of relentless bombing are combined with the malnutrition and disease caused by Israel’s blockade, this figure might end up being tragically conservative.

The killing of Hamas’ main leader and chief negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh, while he was in Tehran, Iran is part of a cynical attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to provoke an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East just so that he can stay in power. In this he can count on the complicity of Western imperialism, which allows him to remain in office as their main reliable ally in the region. 

The Palestinian people were forcibly expelled from their homeland by Zionist armed militias in 1948, in an event which remains in their collective historical memory as the Nakba, or the Catastrophe. The Zionist project had always envisaged such a development, and all genuine revolutionary Communists had consistently been opposed to the Zionist ideology. Why then did Stalin abandon the position of one state for the two peoples, Palestinian and Jewish, and come out in support of partition in 1947, together with the subsequent setting up of a separate Jewish state?

We are pleased to announce the publication of the fifteenth issue of Freedom and Communism, the Arabic-language magazine of the Revolutionary Communist International. This issue focuses on the crimes of imperialism and revolutionary struggles on the African continent. Click here to download a pdf of the full magazine in Arabic.

On Saturday 15 June, the Union of Workers at the Port of Piraeus (ENEDEP) mobilised to stop the Israel-bound container ship MSC ALTAIR from docking at the Greek port. The vessel was carrying war materials, destined to rain destruction on Gaza. Thanks to the blockade staying strong, the ship was forced to reroute towards Italy, landing a blow on Israel’s war machine that sets an example to workers of the world!

The death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash was celebrated by hypocritical imperialist governments and newspapers in the West, who gloated at the end of the ‘Butcher of Tehran’ – while preserving harsh sanctions that subject millions of ordinary Iranians to hardship, and continuing to support Israel’s butchery in Gaza. The communists make no common cause with these characters, who are themselves murderers representing the same vile capitalist system as the Mullahs ruling Iran. From our own perspective, we say: Raisi’s bloodstained legacy is one of counterrevolutionary reaction. May the revolutionary Iranian masses soon bury the Islamic Republic alongside him.

Millions of people around the globe collectively reeled in horror on Sunday after an IDF airstrike laid waste to a tent camp for displaced civilians in Rafah, killing at least 45 people. Social media is filled with images of charred and dismembered men, women and children, murdered while they slept. Lenin once wrote that capitalism is horror without end: in Gaza, those words are being spelt out in the language of fire and blood for all the world to see.

Yesterday the world’s media was rocked by the surprise news that the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, is seeking arrest warrants for war crimes, against Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Yoav Gallant, the Defence Minister.

As the horrors of Israel’s war on Gaza continue to escalate, a wave of student protests has erupted in solidarity with the Palestinians: drawing comparisons with the anti-Vietnam War movement. Starting in the USA, the encampments quickly spread internationally, meeting with press slander and brutal police repression. In this special episode, we speak with four student communists from Canada, the UK, Austria and the USA, who have been active in encampments at various universities, to hear about their experiences of this inspiring struggle.