The situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic proportions, with over two million Palestinians displaced, a staggering number facing death from malnutrition, and children suffering acute hunger in a situation unthinkable for any society that lays claim to humanity. Though hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks are permitted entry each week due to international outcry, much of this relief does not reach those in greatest need, with deadly violence breaking out as desperate people scramble for food, and the occupying power shamelessly shedding all responsibility. The death toll among those merely trying to eat speaks to a society in collapse. Meanwhile, Israel’s leaders, unmoved by the suffering their siege is inflicting, plot the full occupation of Gaza, disregarding risks to Israeli hostages and the predictable suffering of the trapped Palestinian masses. The fate of millions is held hostage to colonial calculations, with some in government eager for mass expulsions, unashamedly suggesting a new chapter of ethnic cleansing, though this is unpopular with Palestinians and rejected by the region.
Behind all this carnage, the hand of US imperialism is obvious and unmistakable: America's rulers continue to arm and bankroll the occupation with dizzying sums, making them equally complicit in the carnage. While pretense diplomacy drags on, France and Canada’s symbolic recognition of Palestine spotlights the utter bankruptcy of an “international community” that refuses to force an end to daily massacres and starvation blockades. The political machinations of leaders matter little to the suffering child denied a meal, or the family bombed from their home. Even debates on who shall eventually govern Gaza are mere smoke screens while the existing colonial order remains unshaken.
From a Marxist and Maoist perspective, what we are witnessing in Gaza is not simply a humanitarian catastrophe, but a deliberate, systematic method of capitalist-imperialist violence. The siege, the starvation, the mass displacement: these are the weapons of late-stage capitalism wielded through settler colonialism, with the active sponsorship and shield of the world’s largest imperialist power. The hand-wringing of international organizations, the hollow posturing of Western governments, and the crocodile tears of those who never question the existence of the capitalist-imperialist system that sustains Israel’s oppression—these are diversions that seek to numb the working masses to the truth: that peace cannot come while imperialism rules.
True liberation for Gaza—and for all the oppressed—will not come through “humanitarian” band-aids, nor through elite-negotiated deals that force the people’s fate into the hands of reactionaries and compradors. Only a people’s movement, united and inspired by the example of other national liberation struggles, can expel the occupiers and rebuild society along socialist lines—where resources are planned for human need, not for capitalist profit or imperial calculation. The tragedy of Gaza is a call for all revolutionaries and anti-imperialists to redouble our struggle, heighten our solidarity, and recognize that the fate of the Palestinian people is inextricably linked with the global struggle against imperialism and capitalism. Only when the peoples of the world, led by their own revolutionary forces, smash the structures of imperial domination, can famine, displacement, and war be ended once and for all.