We are pleased to publish the below article by Fouad Baker from the Foreign Affairs Department of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). The DFLP is a Marxist-Leninist party and an important component of the Palestinian national liberation movement.
Fouad addresses the significance of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, launched by Hamas and other sections of the Palestinian resistance on October 7, from a number of angles. He notes that:
“The Israelis called the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ operation a terrorist operation, ignoring the fact that they are the occupiers of lands belonging to the Palestinian people. If they want real peace in the Middle East, they must end the occupation.
“The Palestinian operation exposed the weakness of Israeli intelligence that failed to discover the resistance plan despite all the support from the USA, and the failure of Israel’s surveillance and espionage programmes… The operation’s success was down to the full coordination between the Palestinian resistance factions working in complete secrecy.”
In an important observation regarding not just the regional but also the wider international significance of the operation, he writes:
“It was a move to prevent the Arab regimes from signing peace agreements with Israel and derail American attempts to build economic blocs in the region to besiege China, Iran, and Russia – the most recent of which is the India-Middle East-Europe ‘corridor’.”
The India-Middle East-Europe ‘corridor’ (IMEC) was unveiled at September’s G-20 Summit in the Indian capital New Delhi at the instigation of the United States and a handful of others, including France, Germany, Italy, the European Union, and India, and is the latest attempt by the imperialist powers to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Fouad’s article was written on October 8, just one day after the launch of the Al Aqsa Flood, and obviously Gaza and the wider region have been convulsed by tumultuous events since then. However, the information and analysis he presents retains its relevance and validity.
We thank the comrades of the New Worker, weekly paper of the New Communist Party (NCP) of Britain, for sharing their sub-editing of the article for clarity and style.
Additionally, on October 14, Friends of Socialist China attended on invitation a briefing and discussion meeting on the current situation organised by the DFLP. The meeting was held over Zoom with the participation of communist and other left-wing parties and organisations from around 25 countries.
No one expected that this would be the response of the Palestinian resistance to the plan of the fascist and racist Israeli occupation government based on Judaisation, displacement, expansion of settlements, annexation of lands, storming the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinian camps in the West Bank, administrative arrests, and the liquidation of the Palestinian cause and the national rights of the Palestinian people.
Although Israel possesses the latest technologies, its security system failed to protect the settlers living on stolen Palestinian land. A number of Palestinian resistance fighters were able to cross the border fence separating the Gaza Strip and the settlements killing dozens of settlers and taking others prisoner back to the Gaza Strip.
Some 5,000 missiles were fired from the Gaza Strip towards these illegal settlements, which paralysed the Israeli ‘Iron Dome’ and the Israeli security system. The joint Palestinian operations room, which includes all the Palestinian factions, took part in this military operation. The most prominent of which were Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The news was greeted with astonishment in the West Bank. Astonishment at the success of the military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip. Celebratory marches in Palestinian cities in the occupied territories soon led to clashes with Israeli troops.
Israeli troops opened fire on Palestinian demonstrators in towns throughout the West Bank and an Israeli police station was torched in Jerusalem.
The Palestinian resistance called the attack on the Israeli settlements located on the border of the Gaza Strip ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’.
The offensive was designed to regain the initiative and block Saudi-Israeli normalisation, which aims to liquidate the Palestinian cause and deprive them of their national rights. Rights which include the right of the refugees to return to their land, ending the Israeli occupation, establishing an independent Palestinian state.
The Israelis called the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation a terrorist operation, ignoring the fact that they are the occupiers of lands belonging to the Palestinian people. If they want real peace in the Middle East, they must end the occupation.
The Palestinian operation exposed the weakness of Israeli intelligence that failed to discover the resistance plan despite all the support from the USA, and the failure of Israel’s surveillance and espionage programmes such as their Pegasus spyware which they’ve also sold to some Arab regimes.
The operation’s success was down to the full coordination between the Palestinian resistance factions working in complete secrecy.
The Palestinian bet on using paragliders to penetrate the border fence in the Gaza Strip to destroy Israeli tanks and open the way to the advance towards the illegal settlements worked.
The emergence of a qualitative development in the work of the Palestinian resistance, which transformed primitive rockets and simple shells into semi-precise missiles that reach deep into Israel enabled it to capture Israeli soldiers to use in negotiations for the release of the Palestinian prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons for decades.
The Al-Aqsa Flood operation was launched only after all diplomatic means had been exhausted. It was a specific confrontation due to the racist policy implemented by the Israeli occupation government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. It was a move to prevent the Arab regimes from signing peace agreements with Israel and derail American attempts to build economic blocs in the region to besiege China, Iran, and Russia – the most recent of which is the India-Middle East-Europe ‘corridor’.
The Israeli response to the Palestinian offensive has been to bomb the Gaza Strip including residential tower blocks and other civilian targets resulting in over 250 Palestinian martyrs and hundreds more wounded.
But the fascist Israeli government wants to avoid a long and multi-fronted conflict as it knows that any military operation that crosses the red line will ignite the Middle East in defence of the Palestinian people, as happened in the October War of 1973.
In the occupied territories, the refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan and the Palestinian communities in Europe the people are rallying behind the defence of the Gaza Strip. Support is coming from Iraq, Yemen and Syria and the Lebanese resistance has already intervened.
Around the world social networking sites are ablaze with congratulations to the Palestinians for this qualitative military operation while the Arabs took to the streets with fireworks and sweets to celebrate a Palestinian victory that has not been seen since the birth of Israel in 1948.
Those who think that the Palestinian people can be fobbed of with email messages of support or agree to becoming political pawns of the great powers are only fooling themselves. The deluded are those who think that the Palestinian people will accept political settlements that do not meet demands that recognise their legitimate national rights. And the most delusional are those who think that peace in the Middle East can be achieved without real justice and an end to the Israeli occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Just as the Battle of Saif al-Quds in Gaza in 2021 ended a stage in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Al-Aqsa Flood operation opened a new page in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
I am from Vancouver,Canada and i wanted to say that and i wanted to say that the DFLP has been around for a long time. Several decades ago the Head of the DFLP was in Cuba talking to Fidel. Cuba always had good relations with Palestine.
People in all parts of the world support the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation. Every week there are large Demonstrations everywhere in the world supporting the Heroic People of the Al Qassam Brigades and other Brigades fighting in Gaza. As it was mentioned in this Article this is a turning point for the Liberation of Palestine. This Huge Support for the Al- Aqsa Flood will continue.
The Palestinian People are like the Cuban People. They will not be defeated. The Yankees and their supporters are on the losing side. Palestine and Cuba got the support of the whole world.
I just returned from detention in Egypt for pushing for the World Conscience Convoy permission to allow aid to Gaza through Rafah. I and other international delegates spent 31 hours in detention and deported afterwards. At the Minister of Foreign Affairs we presented a letter asking for permits for the convoy and unfurled a banner stating: From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free. It was interesting that the police stressing for support but were under the orders of the National Security. I am running for Congressional office and will surely highlight the genocide by Israel- John Thompson Parker, candidate for Califoria 37th Congressional District