“Horror without end”[1] are words that can only partially describe what is happening today in Gaza. Despite the massive outcry from movements, workers and youth all over the world, the Israeli regime is continuing the slaughter of Palestinians and pursuing its broader aims in the region. This is only possible because of the support of the West, i.e., the US and the main European powers, who every now and then may utter a few words of “protest” at the atrocities, but never waver in their support for the Israeli government.
At the same time the world has seen one of the most significant movements against the war, in country after country. Importantly the movement inside Israel, also, has reached new levels, especially since the summer of this year. The war on Gaza can be described as a turning point for consciousness and political developments internationally. Marxists, and the anticapitalist Left in general, need to respond and show a way forward.
The following article attempts to draw a balance sheet of the war since its onset on October 7, 2023. It will be presented in 3 parts (around 6,000 words in total), today, on October 4 and on October 7.
Part I.
Genocide and ethnic cleansing live on cameras
The war on Gaza has been going on unabated for two years since October 2023. It remains an open question how and why Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, one of the most effective ones on the planet, failed to find out the plans of Hamas and its allies who during their attack into Israel killed about 1200 civilians, mostly youth, and took as hostages around 250. It also seems, although there are no accurate figures, that at least 1000 Hamas militants also died on October 7th, making it the single most bloody day since the founding of the state of Israel.
The Israeli army (IDF) responded with brutal force, bombing absolutely everything: houses, schools, hospitals, press offices, infrastructure – all were razed to the ground. Tens of thousands of Palestinians died in the bombings or were shot/executed in cold blood, not only by the IDF but also by settlers in the West Bank. According to the UN, in the first 6 weeks of the war more Palestinian civilians were killed than in the first two years of the war in Ukraine.
At the time of writing (end of September 2025) the number of Palestinian deaths is over 65,000, about 1/3 of which are children, with an unidentified number buried under the rubble. It is estimated that 80% of casualties are civilian – while 70% of the Palestinians killed in residential buildings were women and children.
Journalists of international media (Al Jazeera, Reuters, etc.) were specifically targeted and shot – around 250 in total! This is part of the efforts of the Israeli state to hide the truth about what is actually happening in Gaza (and the West Bank). UN reports that the number of aid workers killed in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 rose to 540! This shows the cynicism of the Israeli regime. The Palestinian people are starved to death, through a conscious policy that aims to destroy their morale and drive them out.
The United Nations (UN), an organisation that as a rule does not disobey the directives of the Western powers, have officially referred to “famine” and to a “humanitarian catastrophe”. The distribution of aid is in the hands of the Israeli state (via the so called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”) which refuses to allow the UN or any western NGOs to carry out this task. As a result, more than 1,150 Palestinians have been shot dead while queuing up and after travelling long distances on foot in order to reach the distribution points!
UN commissions/officials now speak openly of genocide. In addition, Netanyahu has been declared a war criminal by the International Criminal Court and an arrest warrant was issued on 21 November 2024.
The West – hypocrisy at its utmost
Israel is able to behave in such a way only because of the support it enjoys from the Western powers – especially the US.
The fact that a number of European countries are beginning to become critical of Netanyahu does not change the substance of their policies. And It’s very important to remember that this taking place only because of the huge pressure of the anti-war movement and the shifting mass consciousness against the genocide; as well as the fact, of course, that Netanyahu has really gone too far even for its most dedicated supporters like Germany and the UK. His most recent provocation was the air attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar, a close ally of the West, on September 9.
As a result, some European countries have been forced to start criticising Israel.
The decision by a number of key Western powers, like France, Britain, Australia, Canada, Portugal, Belgium, etc., to recognize a Palestinian state in the course of September is the most important recent example. The full number of states that now recognize Palestine as a state stands at 157 – which is more than 80% of UN’s 193 member states. This will obviously be greeted as a positive development by the Palestinian people and the anti-war movement internationally. But there should be no illusions. The move is symbolic – the Western powers need to show their “public opinion” that they are “doing something”. But they are not showing any intention of seriously pressurizing Israel.
At the same time as supposedly “defending” the right of the Palestinian people to have their own national state, some of the “great democracies” of the West continue to attack, arrest, prosecute and suppress anti-war protests with the pretext of “antisemitism” (and even “terrorism” – in the case of “Palestine Action” in Britain).
Before the war began, 147 out of 193 member states of the United Nations, had already recognized a Palestinian state. This did not make any difference to the daily lives of the Palestinian people. The 147 countries recognizing Palestine were completely ignored by Israel and the US – and until the recent developments by all major powers in Europe.
The reasons for the West’s stand on the Israel-Palestine issue should be clear: there is no other country in the region that serves the interests of Western imperialism in the way Israel does. The region, rich in energy resources but unstable socially and politically, and inhabited by hundreds of millions of Arab and Moslem populations with a tradition of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles and feelings, is of key importance to the West. Israel is a stable watch dog for the interests of Western imperialism. So, however much the Israeli ruling class goes over the limits, the West will not abandon them – and Netanyahu and his gang know that.
The Geopolitical aspect
The declared aim of sections of the Israeli ruling class, represented by the far-right parties, is to push the population of Gaza out and to expand the settlements in the West Bank, leaving no room for the Palestinian people to live. This is in accordance with some of Trump’s previous statements, who was the first to speak of turning Gaza into a riviera and it is clear that Netanyahu flirted with the idea.
But the Israeli ruling class’s plans, in general, do not stop at the expulsion of sections of the Palestinian population and the further take-over of lands in the occupied territories. They expand into the broader region.
Israel attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon and was able to inflict serious blows against it killing many of its core leaders. Just when the war with Hezbollah began, thousands of pagers and walkie talkies exploded in the hands of Hezbollah leading cadres (having been booby-trapped with explosives by Mossad) killing tens and injuring thousands.
The weakening of Hezbollah, coupled with the fact that Russia was preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, played a major role in the collapse of Assad’s regime in Syria in December 2024. The regime fell in a number of days, indicating its complete isolation from the Syrian society and the fact that it was only able to survive because it was based on Hezbollah’s militias and the support of Russia.
This led to the severe weaking of the so called “axis of resistance”, which had Iran at its center and included Asad’s regime, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and other forces in the region, like the Houthis in Yemen and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq.
Then came the attack on Iran, on June 13.
It is a fact that Israel was not able to achieve 100% of its aims in all these military confrontations. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah have been completely eradicated and Iran still stands as the main opponent of Israel (and western interests) in the region. But it is also a fact that the clear winner has been Israel. It has had limited casualties and has seriously weakened its opponents in the region.
The confrontation of course is not over. All sides will be preparing for another round in the future.
Immediately after the fall of the Assad regime Israel expanded its military intervention in Syria. It captured the whole of the Golan heights and moved in the direction of Damascus – now at a distance of 20 or even 10 km, according to different reports, from its outskirts. Israel has openly stated that the Golan heights will never be returned to Syria.
At the same it is developing close relations with the Druze minority in South-West Syria, actually intervening militarily to defend them against attacks by the Bedouins and the new Syrian regime under HTS and Ahmed al-Sharaa. It went as far as to use fighter planes against targets in Damascus, in its defense of the Druze, in a 10-day armed confrontation that started on June 27.
Establishing such a “protectorate” within Syria is an important development for Israel, particularly as it links to the Kurdish forces which dominate the South-East and the East of Syria.
Israel presents itself as the protector of Kurdish interests and the national rights of the Kurdish people. The Kurds enjoy extensive autonomy in Syria and they resist the attempts of the new regime to bring their areas under its control in the name of unifying Syria.
These new forces in alliance with Israel, i.e., the Druze and the Kurds, are of a different kind from the agreements and compromises made with neighboring Arab states in the past. The “peace agreements” with countries like Egypt, Jordan, etc., are by definition unstable. The “Abraham Accords” agreed between Israel and a number of Arab states (UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, with Saudi Arabia also indicating interest) in 2020, are for now meaningless though not entirely broken.
The new alliances build through the present war by Israel, mean the creation of a “zone” that starts from Israel, passes through the occupied Palestinian territories, assimilates a section of Syrian territory around the Golan heights and close to Damascus, and expands from the south west areas of the Druze, to the East which is under the control of the Kurds. This brings Israel to the borders of Iran, its main enemy in the region.
This of course is a process still under development, but there must be no doubt that Israel will pursue these aims in the most determined manner – despite the moaning and groaning of some of its European allies. It has a unique opportunity for its expansion in the region and it will be using the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, as the justification for it, to its full advantage.
Can there be a Palestinian state?
In theory, a future Palestinian state cannot be excluded under capitalism, under the pressure of events. But if and when such a development takes place, there should be no illusions that this will be a real and independent state. It will be a puppet state, under the tight control of Israel and its imperialist patrons.
This is made clear, by the UN resolution of September 12, known as the “New York Declaration” in support of a Palestinian state, prepared by France and Saudi Arabia. The resolution supports an independent Palestinian state, but does not clarify what this state will mean, given that the Palestinian people have been and continue to be driven out of their land; it has nothing to say about the rights of Palestinian refugees; it does not explain how this will be forced upon Israel; and demands the disarming of Hamas and the establishment of full control in the hands of the Palestinian Authority (now in the hands of Mahmoud Abas, of Fatah, in the West Bank). In other words, it is completely unclear of what a “Palestinian state” means, and also this “new state” will have no real choice about who will be in government and no real option of, for example, arming itself.
This is also made clear by Trump’s most recent about turn – after proposing to turn Gaza into a riviera in February 2025. In the recent 21-point plan (revealed by the “Times of Israel” on 27.09.2025) which he presented for discussion to the two sides and a small number of countries (Arab and European) he proposes that: Gaza’s population will have to be “de-radicalized”; Gaza will be administered by a temporary transitional government of Palestinian technocrats: real power will lie with an international body established by the US, Arab and European partners (Tony Blair is being discussed as the head of this body); the Palestinian Authority has to go through a “reform program” and can take over control once this is completed; Hamas will be disarmed and will have no role in Gaza’s governance whatsoever; Security guarantees will be provided by the regional partners; stability will be guaranteed by an international stabilization force; and if all these, among other conditions are met, then “the conditions may be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian statehood”.
It can be seen that there are scores of reasons why this plan may never be implemented. But if it is ever implemented, it is clear that this state will have no real independence. It will be run by a foreign government and by foreign armies. It will not mean the solution of the Palestinian national problem; it will only change its form.
[1] “Horror without end” is an expression used by Lenin to describe the conditions in the colonial countries in his times.
