The massacre of the people of Palestine must be stopped!

Israel's brutal assault on the Jenin refugee camp on 3 and 4 July 2023 has already resulted in the death of 12 people, the injury of more than a hundred and the forced eviction of about 3,000 residents, in addition to a large-scale destruction in one of the refugee camps with the highest rates of poverty and unemployment.

The Israeli military violence, involving some 1,000 soldiers and air assets, did not spare hospitals, places of worship, the headquarters of the Freedom Theatre group, and was again marked by the deliberate attack on journalists on duty in an effort to hide the brutality of Israeli operations.

The assault on Jenin is not an isolated act. It is part of a criminal wave of repression which, continuing the permanent Israeli policy of repression against the Palestinian people, has escalated on a major scale since the new Netanyahu government took office.

This government not only includes but has officially handed over control of Israeli militarised forces to the leaders of the most extreme right wing, advocates of formal occupation and the expulsion of the Palestinian people from the whole of historic Palestine.

This wave of repression is carried out not only by the military and militarised forces of Israel but also by armed bands of settlers who have unleashed veritable pogroms against Palestinian villages. Since the beginning of this year, almost 200 Palestinians have died as victims of this wave of violence.

The MPPM also denounces that last week, and for the 19th time this year, Israel bombed Syrian territory, in a clear violation of international law, which is not even reported in the media. It recalls that Israel has illegally occupied the Syrian Golan Heights for 56 years.

The MPPM demands an immediate end to this wave of repression by Israel against the Palestinian people and its acts of war in the region.

The MPPM finds intolerable the complicit silence or the hypocritical positions taken by governments that merely "deplore" the events or that choose to ignore the fact that in the assault on Jenin, as in the Palestinian question as a whole, there are not "two parties" with equal responsibilities, but aggressors and aggressed, executioners and victims.

The regrettable tweet which, to date, represents the only position taken by the Portuguese government on the assault on Jenin is a significant example of this. While it is positive that the Portuguese government is calling on Israel to stop settlement building in the occupied territories, it is incomprehensible that, given the brutality of the ongoing violence against the Palestinian population, the Portuguese government does not have the courage to clearly denounce Israel's crimes and demand an immediate end to them, just as it does not recall Israel's systematic and brazen violations of international law. Portugal must use all means at its disposal, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to demand that Israel respects international law.

The MPPM again underlines that there is no solution to the Palestinian question without the recognition of the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people. Complicity with Israel's crimes and violations of international law only fuels an escalation of conflict and war that threatens to spread to the entire Middle East, already scarred by decades of wars unleashed by NATO powers in their eagerness to control the region's gigantic energy resources.

It is time to stop the spiral of war and violence!

It is time to demand the end of the massacre of the people of Palestine!

July 6th 2023

The National Directorate of MPPM