One Year of Genocide in Palestine: Statement from the New York Young Communist League
Today marks one year since the escalation of Israel’s genocidal violence against the Palestinian people. At least 41,500* Palestinians have been killed and more than 94,454 injured in Gaza alone. 40% of those killed are children. A new acronym has arisen from the devastation: WCNSF - Wounded Child, No Surviving Family. Over 900 family lines have been completely wiped out. Entire neighborhood blocks have been reduced to rubble. All of Gaza’s hospitals have been targeted, with only a few still operating – at limited capacity – and overwhelmed with casualties and illnesses. Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.1 million inhabitants have been displaced multiple times and face a manufactured famine at the hands of Israel. There is no safe place in Gaza.
*This number is a severe undercount as over 10,000 Palestinians are missing under rubble, and Israel’s attacks have made it extremely difficult to record the true number of deaths, sources: Al Jazeera, United Nations. The Lancelot estimated that at least 186,000 Palestinians will die as a result of the Genocide even if a ceasefire were to take place (July 2024 at the time of publishing).
Palestinians in the West Bank continue to face displacement at gunpoint by Israeli Settlers and fatal raids from the IDF. Over 10,700 Palestinians in the West Bank have been kidnapped by Israel in the past year- taken captive and held without trial and subjected to torture. Palestinians and anti-zionists across occupied territories face kidnapping by the Israeli police for their discourse against the genocide. These atrocities are not isolated incidents but part of a deliberate and systematic policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide pursued by the Zionist settler-colonial state of Israel since its founding in 1948.
This campaign of destruction has expanded beyond the borders of Palestine. In Lebanon, the Israeli state has committed acts of terror through pager and other electronic device detonations, and has launched massive airstrikes into Lebanon, killing and wounding scores of civilians and displacing thousands more. Lebanon upholds international law by fighting to stop Israel’s genocide. The Zionist regime’s brutality increases as it attempts to extend its sphere of domination, targeting any resistance to its colonial project. This expansion of violence is another clear signal that Israel’s intentions go beyond mere “security”—they are aimed at the total eradication of Palestinian and Arab resistance against its settler colonialism.
The United States, through its military, financial, and diplomatic support, is the primary enabler of these crimes. Without the billions of dollars in annual military aid, the provisions of advanced weaponry, and the political shielding from accountability at international bodies like the United Nations, Israel’s war machine would be forced to halt its genocidal campaign. This is not just Israel’s genocide; it is the United States’ genocide as well. Every bomb dropped on Gaza, every missile fired into Lebanon, and every bullet used to kill Palestinians in the West Bank bears the imprint of U.S. imperialism. As residents in the imperial core, it is our responsibility to put an end to the U.S. war machine.
The New York Young Communist League continues to call for:
An immediate & permanent ceasefire in Gaza and surrounding areas.
An immediate lifting of the siege on Gaza: an end to the inhumane blockade of Gaza, which constitutes collective punishment and has led to severe shortages of food, medicine, and essential supplies.
An end to U.S. military aid to Israel and all forms of financial and political support to the Israeli state, which enables its colonial violence and expansion.
An end to Israeli occupation and the dismantling of Israeli settlements.
Aid for the rebuilding of infrastructure, medical necessities, and agriculture.
The Right of Return for all Palestinian refugees: upholding the right of return as mandated by international law, ensuring that all Palestinian refugees and their descendants have the right to return to their land and their homes.
We endorse the BDS Movement as a necessary strategy to pressure Israel to comply with international law and respect the human rights of Palestinians.
We call for universities across New York and the U.S. to divest from all companies profiting from Israeli apartheid, and for students to have the right to organize on their campuses without fear of repression or censorship. We demand that institutions cease their participation in Zionist propaganda efforts and sever ties with any organization complicit in Israeli crimes.
The NY-YCL fully supports student encampments, sit-ins, and other direct actions on campuses calling for divestment from these companies and an end to university complicity in the occupation. The targeting and repression of these movements by university administrations and Zionist groups is a blatant violation of free speech and academic freedom. We stand in solidarity with organizers for Palestine across New York and the broader U.S., who have faced smear campaigns, administrative sanctions, evictions, deportations, and even threats of legal action for organizing in support of Palestinian liberation.
Over the past year, a global resistance against imperialism has rapidly grown, fueled by the resilience of Palestinian liberation movements that continue to resist decades of brutal occupation. Millions of people around the world are standing in solidarity with Palestine, coming together to challenge imperialist policies, demand a just and lasting peace, and fight for a future rooted in justice.
As communists, we recognize that the struggle for Palestinian liberation is intertwined with the broader global struggle against imperialism and colonialism. The Israeli state functions as a strategic outpost of U.S. imperialism in the region, serving as a tool to suppress anti-imperialist movements across the Middle East. The liberation of Palestine is therefore not just a national liberation struggle, but also an international fight against the forces of colonialism, imperialism, and reaction.
We call on all progressive forces to stand firmly against the Israel-U.S. led genocide in Palestine and to fight for a world where the rights of all oppressed peoples are respected and upheld. We affirm the Palestinian peoples’ right to liberation and commit to standing with them in this ongoing struggle until victory.
