Partido Lakas ng Masa (The Philippines): Defend Rafah! End the siege on Gaza now! Stop Israel’s fascist and genocidal invasion!

[Editor’s note: Aaron Pedrosa, from the Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM), will be speaking at Ecosocialism 2024, June 28–30, Boorloo/Perth, Australia. For more information on the conference visit ecosocialism.org.au.]

Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) condemns in the strongest terms the recent wave of bombings of Rafah by the settler-colonial and fascistic Zionist project of Israel. This unprovoked bombing comes at the heel of a proposed agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza with Hamas by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, thus proving once more the disingenuous claims of the Zionist entity’s “right to defend itself.”

Once again, our social media feeds are flooded with a horrifying barrage of images of mutilated corpses of innocent civilians — men, women, and children — recovered under the rubble of destroyed buildings in Rafah, rushed to dilapidated, undermanned clinics and hospitals by an increasingly embattled and traumatized civilian population.

This is but the latest in the unending massacres on the innocent people of Palestine under the guise of retaliating to the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Palestinian occupied territory. As an act of desperation, Israel has intensified its genocidal attacks as the “final solution” to the Palestinian people’s valiant and just struggle for national liberation, claiming the lives of a rough estimate of more than 40,000 people and injuring more than 70,000 — a sizable majority of whom are women and children.

The Palestinian resistance has endured against the most brutal systematic dehumanization and violence since the original Zionist Balfour declaration in 1917 propped up by British Imperialism, up to the the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948, the wave of armed resistance in the 1960’s-70’s, and the First and Second Intifadas in 1987 and 2000-2005 marked by the most heroic popular uprisings and armed struggles.

Despite all genocidal and fascist attempts by the settler-colonial project of Israel, the Zionist project and its imperialist backers continue to collapse and lose legitimacy as the global intifada continues to win over an increasingly broader strata of people across the world of different generations and backgrounds, further emboldening the Palestinian resistance to raise their just struggle to a higher stage.

As one of the popular pro-Palestinian chants goes, “when people are occupied, resistance is justified!”

PLM shares in the calls of the Palestinian resistance and the global Palestinian solidarity movement for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an immediate end to the siege on Gaza, a complete withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from occupied Palestine in both Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the cessation of all forms of military and economic aid to the bankrupt and genocidal Zionist regime by the US-led Western Imperialist bloc.

Finally, in the spirit of internationalism, PLM calls on the Filipino people to reinvigorate solidarity efforts with the cause of Palestinian liberation. Let us learn from the wellspring of popular resistance in all its various forms which are now setting ablaze the entire world from the surrounding countries in the Middle East, the home countries of Western imperialism which are now erupting in a wave of student protests, and the broad and sweeping solidarity efforts of the peoples of the Global South in support of Palestine.

We as the Filipino people are well-aware of the horrific violence of colonialism in our own lands — whether it is the over 300 years of Spanish colonialism, the 30+ years of US colonialism, the three years of fascist occupation of Japan, and the continued suffering of the Filipino toiling masses under the yoke of US imperialism and neocolonial domination.

Just as the Filipino people had broken the chains of colonial and imperialist subjugation, so too will the Palestinian resistance, which has the broadest support of the world’s peoples. We are duty-bound to render our most unconditional and unwavering solidarity.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!