The Iranian missile attack on Israel on October 1, ended with one fatality—a worker from Gaza who was in a Palestinian police base near Jericho. According to reports, he was hit by shrapnel from interceptors and missile fragments that fell in the area of the village of Nu’aymah, where workers from Gaza were staying after being stranded following the October 7 Hamas terror attack in Israel’s south. The worker killed, Sameh Khadr Hassan Al-Asali (38), was struck in the head and died on the spot. According to his ID, published on Palestinian social media, he was a resident of the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and had three sons—Adi, Amro, and Yazan.

The Iranian regime, claiming to lead what it calls the “axis of resistance” against the Israeli occupation, launched 180 ballistic missiles at Israel to express its commitment to the Palestinian liberation struggle and revenge the deaths of Ismail Haniye and Hassan Nassralah. Ironically, the only practical outcome of this grandiose act was yet another Palestinian victim. Not just any victim, but a Gazan worker. Along with several hundred of his peers, he was forced to seek refuge in the West Bank for a whole year after his path back to his family in Gaza was blocked since October 2023.

According to news agency reports, missile and interceptor fragments fell in several locations in Israel as well as in some Palestinian towns in the West Bank. By the end of this tense evening, there were a few light injuries and minor property damage in Israel and the territories.

The Iranian regime, as mentioned, has aspirations of leading the Arab region. To advance this goal, it has established a network of proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, funded and armed by Tehran. Iran was behind the Hamas terror attack on October 7. It also determined that Hezbollah would conduct a year-long war of attrition on Israel’s northern border, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese becoming refugees in their own countries.

The missile attack (second to the one launched in April) was intended to be the ultimate response to the severe blow Israel dealt to the prestige of the Tehran regime and its strategic standing. Instead of producing an image of victory that would demonstrate its strength to the entire world and reinforce the trust of the region’s residents in it, this attack became an embarrassing failure for a regime incapable of addressing the basic needs of its own 90 million inhabitants.

As usual, the failure was concealed.  Supreme Leader Khamenei mobilized thousands for victory parades in the streets of Tehran; media channels and social networks were filled with images of the “severe hits” supposedly dealt to strategic targets in Israel. The Israeli report that the attack was thwarted with American, British, and Jordanian assistance was dismissed as false propaganda of the “Zionist entity” and the corrupt West. The credibility of the Iranian version of this missile attack is no higher than that of Nasrallah’s previous boasts about striking Unit 8200’s base in Tel Aviv.

The communication channels of the “axis of resistance” do not mention, even in passing, the Gazan worker killed in Jericho. Hamas, which sold its soul for Iranian money and weapons, ignores Palestinian workers employed in Israel and the settlements. It views them as traitors for their willingness to work for Israeli employers.

Against the backdrop of the resounding military blows dealt to Hezbollah in recent weeks and the Iranian failing missile attack, a recognition is beginning to form in the region that Iran is a fragile reed.

More than 200,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank, whose employment in Israel served as a lifeline for the ailing Palestinian economy before October 2023, have since been barred from entering Israel. These workers, along with many others, are direct victims of the war. Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah also refuses to support them. Instead of standing up clearly against the false rhetoric of the “Axis of Resistance”, shunning Hamas, and presenting themselves as a worthy alternative, the PA leaders appear as an excess of Hamas. The Palestinian workers are not a factor in the equation – neither for Hamas nor for Abu Mazen’s PA.

Against the backdrop of the resounding military blows dealt to Hezbollah in recent weeks and the Iranian failing missile attack, a recognition is beginning to form in the region that Iran is a fragile reed. The false war waged by the Tehran clerical regime against Israel aims to create a scapegoat to divert public attention from its clerical authoritarian hold and corrupt nature and ensure its stability.

The Iranian people have understood the big lie for a long time. Since the Green Movement in 2009 against the rigged election in favor of Ahmadinejad, we have witnessed brave waves of protests and popular uprisings, culminating in the women’s uprising that began in September 2022 after Mahsa Amini’s murder for not putting her hair dress properly. This public protest faced murderous repression, executions of dissidents, and silencing of activists and artists. In October 2023, we saw the crowd at a football stadium in Tehran booing regime representatives who demanded a moment of silence in solidarity with Palestine. The Iranian people understand that the talk of the “Zionist enemy” and solidarity with Palestine is sheer hypocrisy and simply do not believe it. The results of the presidential elections held in June 2024 also reflect the deep criticism and distrust citizens feel toward the supreme leader’s rule.

It is important to mention that Israel under Netanyahu is not free of responsibility for the region’s descent into a destructive war. The notion that the resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians can be indefinitely postponed, thus leaving five million Palestinians without basic political, human and civil rights (a view also shared by the previous Left/Right Bennett-Lapid government), was the loop hole through which Tehran, Hamas, and Hezbollah managed to penetrate the Palestinian arena and exploit it for their own sectarian purposes.

As dangerous and difficult as the current crisis is, it also represents an opportunity to address the problem at its root. The blow suffered by the Iranian axis could strengthen the struggle for democracy in the region. This struggle threatens not only the religious leaders and Revolutionary Guards in Tehran, not only their front organizations, but also Netanyahu and his racist partners, who viewed Hamas as a strategic asset that exempted them from the need to advance a political settlement.

The democratic forces in Israel and Palestine, seeking a solution of peace and coexistence, must clearly and resolutely align themselves with the forces fighting for democracy and freedom throughout the Middle East, including Iran.

The key to democratic change in Israel lies primarily in recognizing the Palestinians’ right to live in security, dignity, and equality. Let us turn the memory of Sameh Al-Asali—the victim of the Iranian missile attack—into a symbol of a shared struggle against war, for workers’ rights, human rights, and freedom throughout the region, including Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

The post The Sole Fatality in Iran’s Missile Attack Was a Worker from Gaza first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

Half a year since the so-called “government of change” launched Operation Breakwater in the northern West Bank, and given the increase of shooting incidents between Palestinian militants and the army, Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi has issued an exceptional statement accusing the Palestinian Authority (PA) of lacking in governance: “Part of the increase in terrorism stems from incompetence of the Palestinian security forces, which leads to a lack of governance in certain areas of the Palestinian Authority, and these constitute fertile ground for the growth of terrorism.”

The government of change wanted to restore a sense of security to Israelis following the wave of attacks that hit their cities in March and April this year. Accordingly, it began acting in the areas of Nablus and Jenin. Although the attacks inside Israel have since stopped, shooting incidents between the army and Palestinian militants in the West Bank have increased. Additionally, Palestinian security forces have stopped buffering the Israeli army from Palestinian militants. The result is not only a “lack of governance” by the PA, and rapid deterioration into chaos, but a lack of governance by the Israeli army, which considers itself entrusted with overall security in the region.

However, Operation Breakwater is not Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s sole response to the increasing wave of shooting incidents in the West Bank. Israel has realized that the stick alone will not yield results and must be accompanied by carrots. The goal is to separate the peaceful Palestinian population (the silent majority who want only to provide for their families, go to work in Israel and return home safely) from the armed groups. Both systems operate simultaneously. The Israeli army operates inside the cities and refugee camps, exacting from the Palestinians a daily dose of blood. The Palestinian armed groups, in turn, feel more challenged to confront the army. At the same time, this battle between the most powerful army in the Middle East and the militants does not stop hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from going through the crossings every day to earn a living in Israel. The separation is absolute: the workers do not cooperate with the militants, because they are preoccupied with earning a living.

This is the formula used by the government of change to avoid political negotiations with the PA and reduce the conflict to a minimum. “Economic peace” has become a substitute for political peace, and it has been strengthened by the “regional peace” between Israel and the Gulf states (an achievement of the Netanyahu government). However, that same “economic peace” is also the prime contributor to the PA’s “lack of governance.” Why? Because the PA has become irrelevant to most West Bankers. Israeli economic control is absolute. Israel issues Palestinian ID numbers; it ordains the shekel as the currency; it collects Palestinian customs, which it may pass to the PA or withhold. Above all, the Israeli economy has become the main source of income for the Palestinians of the occupied territories.

The PA is seen by its residents as a parasitic and corrupt entity, whose entire function is to maintain itself and its privileges at their expense. The fact that a Palestinian construction worker can earn a monthly minimum wage of NIS 6,000 in Israel, while a Palestinian teacher earns NIS 2,500 in the PA, tells the whole story. No one wants to work for a salary paid by a Palestinian employer, which amounts to a third of that in Israel. The economic peace eliminates what remains of the enslaved Palestinian economy. When Palestinians consider the free hand of the Israeli army in West Bank cities, and the PA’s zero contribution to the well-being of its people, the question arises: “Why do we need the PA security forces, which employ tens of thousands of police officers, in addition to hundreds of thousands of idle bureaucrats?”

Elections were last held in the PA 16 years ago. Since then, the successive governments have all been appointed by President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), who has remained in office since January 2005 after being elected for a four-year term. The absence of any democratic process has helped disconnect the PA from its people. Judges are appointed by Abu Mazen, so there is no law or justice, while members of the security apparatus take bribes and extort business owners. Appointments to PA positions go to family members, as do franchises and business licenses. One word of criticism on social media is met by arrest without trial. This is how governance disappeared. On top of all that, the economic peace is another blow to what remains of the PA.

Towards the end of August, a call went out on social media for Palestinian construction workers employed in Israel to strike on Sunday the 21st of the month. The reason was to reject an Israeli government decision that employers must transfer salaries directly to the workers’ personal accounts held in Palestinian banks instead of paying them in cash. The decision would normally benefit the workers, for it guarantees the payment of their salaries according to law. It would obstruct the rampant trade in work permits (fictional companies that receive the permits sell them to workers for cash). Indeed, the main claims of the workers are not against Israel in this case.

Why then do the workers protest the decision? Their anger is against the PA, which they believe will exploit the bank transfers to impose additional taxes and take control of their funds. Their lack of trust is so complete that they also firmly refuse to allow the PA to manage their pensions, preferring that Israel do it. Palestinians believe in an old folk proverb: “The injustice of relatives is crueler than a sword over the head.”

The Palestinian social activist who quoted that proverb (and prefers to remain anonymous) expressed his thoughts after the Israeli decision to add another layer to the economic peace by opening the Ramon Airport near Eilat to Palestinian passengers. As a result, they will no longer have to cross into Jordan to fly abroad. As soon as the decision was made, the PA and Jordan objected. They dubbed those using Ramon Airport “traitors” who are prepared to “normalize” relations with the occupier, as if Jordan and the PA have not been normalizing the occupation for decades.

To the astonishment of the said social activist, “the use of the airport sparked a huge wave of controversy on social network sites and in small gatherings.” This is how the activist describes the phenomenon: “We are standing in front of a huge and politically significant popular wave, which starts in response to Israeli gestures. The occupier’s Civil Administration rides this wave and encourages it, that is, to live with Israel according to the economic peace plan.” Hence, while Operation Breakwater addressed the wave of attacks by armed militants, a “huge popular wave” has been developing that is interested in the economic peace maintained by the occupation itself.

The conclusion of this activist is clear: “It follows from economic peace that the Palestinian state will have no existence, that the PA which organizes civil affairs is undesirable, and that people are ready to live indirectly within a one-state solution.” These are the words of an activist who still believes in the vision of a Palestinian state but is watching it vanish between the economic peace of Gantz and the corruption, not to say utter dysfunction, of Abu Mazen. The Palestinian workers are voting with their feet, they do not believe in Abu Mazen or Hamas, nor in the possibility of a Palestinian state, and they understand very well that their fate is inextricably linked to Israel.

Economic peace may be able to separate the armed militant groups of despairing Palestinian youth from the majority of the population, but it will not be able to separate economic rights from the civil rights of the Palestinian people. The time of those rights will come. Economic peace unites the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean into one economic unit, but in its wake, Israel will have to deal with the Palestinian demand to become one political unit, shared by Israelis and Palestinians alike.

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