To Die for the Homeland

On Oct. 7, Palestinian fighters from Gaza, confined under a rigorous regime of surveillance, launched the most powerful and devastating challenge yet to the military supremacy of the Zionist State of Israel in the Middle East.

In a matter of hours, the men of the Islamic Resistance Movement known as Hamas inflicted some 1,200 casualties on its adversary, including soldiers and civilians. They seized vehicles and military equipment and took more than 240 hostages to rebel territory with the aim of exchanging them for the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The operation, meticulously prepared and executed by the armed wing of Hamas, demolished the myth of the superiority of the Israeli intelligence apparatus.

The Palestinian insurrection overshadowed Israel’s 75th anniversary celebration of May 1948, when Israel became the self-proclaimed sole democracy in the Middle East after more than 700,000 Palestinians were dispossessed of their land by acts of terrorism and were forced to take refuge in the Gaza Strip.

A [recent] process driven by the U.S. for certain Arab nations to recognize the Zionist state diplomatically was interrupted without further explanation. Benjamin Netanyahu’s response was a declaration of revenge fueled by hatred and a complete lack of scruples; he referred to Hamas as “human animals” and promised to raze Gaza to the ground.

According to the U.N. Office of Humanitarian Affairs, the suspension of communication and medical services is interfering with accurate casualty figures. Even so, after 45 days of indiscriminate aerial bombardment, Gaza has been essentially reduced to rubble. Israel, with the complicit support of the United States, has displayed its true character: an estimated 12,000 people are dead, more than half of them women and children; some 25,000 are wounded; and half a million displaced to the south, where they are also being massacred.

The Hamas uprising has unveiled the false facade of the Zionist regime’s democracy, and never before has the demand for freedom for Palestine reached such massive expression of support from all over the world. Millions of people now march under the Palestinian flag.

The people of Gaza mourn their martyred dead, whom they have had to bury in mass graves. There is no water, food or electricity; their hospitals, schools and shelters have been bombed, as have their places of worship; yet this hardship and suffering has failed to reduce their patriotic fervor.

No correspondent has been able to record any repudiation of Hamas, a word that in Arabic means “fervor” and today seems louder and more conscious. Once buried in oblivion, the cause of the Palestinian people has returned to the forefront with more urgency than ever, thanks to the actions of Hamas. Today, the right to self-determination for a sovereign and independent state appears to offer the only just and lasting solution.

The United States and its allies are revealing their imperial policies by propping up Israel as the guardian of their appetites for oil, gas and their strategic position in the Middle East. The Palestinian rebellion and the Israeli genocidal massacre have demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the United Nations under current rules.

Perhaps only the hundreds of Palestinian students trained in Cuba as doctors and in other specialties have heard and now remember the lyrics of our Bayamo Hymn; however, the actions of the people of Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem express the conviction that “to die for the homeland is to live.”

The battle in Gaza is still in its infancy. Expect a long and painful period of military occupation and a costly war of attrition. Israel is about to achieve its goal of liquidating Hamas. The outcome of a likely prisoner exchange is still pending. Israeli society will never be the same, nor will the international community ever accept its position as victim of the terrorism with which it tries to justify its crimes.

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