2026-01-31

The escalation of terrorism and war following the October 7, 2023 attack by the reactionary Hamas forces, and the two-year genocide carried out by the fascist government of Israel under that pretext in Gaza, represent a stark symbol of brutality in a world dominated by the barbarism of capitalism. Over the past two years, the Cooperation Council of Iranian Left and Communist Forces has clearly condemned the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli state in Gaza and has stood alongside the oppressed people of Palestine. Now, following the holding of the Stockholm Conference on January 10, 2026, it once again emphasizes its principled positions and policies.

According to reliable statistics published up to the most recent ceasefire, the outcome of this genocide has been more than 70,000 killed and 170,000 wounded, including 20,000 children among the dead. More than 95 percent of residential areas have been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable. All water, electricity, and sewage infrastructure has been destroyed. More than 2.1 million people in the Gaza Strip have been repeatedly displaced and made homeless. Over 518 schools and educational centers have been destroyed. In the past two years, 745,000 children, from primary school through university age, have been deprived of education. During two years of war and genocide, 654 hospitals and health centers were attacked by the fascist Israeli army and partially destroyed. More than 1,700 medical personnel and dozens of journalists have lost their lives during this period. Famine and hunger claimed the lives of 400 people. Gaza’s environment has been entirely devastated. Only one and a half percent of Gaza’s agricultural land remains cultivable.

These atrocities, wars, terrorism, and the two-year genocide are the product of more than seventy years of occupation by the Israeli government, the repression of the Palestinian people, the refusal to recognize the Palestinians’ right to establish an independent state, and the expanding occupation of Palestinian lands by religious–reactionary Jewish groups. These conditions have provided fertile ground for the growth of Islamist currents such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, as well as the interventions of the Islamic Republic under the banner of the “Axis of Resistance” and their terrorist and anti-human practices. Undoubtedly, the U.S. government and most European states are complicit in the genocide of the people of Gaza by Israel. Without their military, financial, logistical, intelligence, diplomatic, and media support, the Israeli state could not have acted with such impunity in the Middle East and against the Palestinians. During the two-year period of genocide, Western governments imposed the greatest obstacles and restrictions on the protest movement of millions of justice-seeking people in defense of the Palestinian people and against the fascist Israeli state. Anti-genocide activists and defenders of Palestinian rights were arrested and detained. Western governments, politically and practically, stood alongside the fascist Israeli state.

On the other side of this killing and destruction stand humane and justice-seeking people across the world, who have consistently stood with the Palestinian people in their struggle to achieve their rights. The recent two-year genocide, which has been met with the broadest protests worldwide, clearly demonstrated the great power of the global justice-seeking protest movement as the decisive factor in imposing the current fragile ceasefire on the fascism ruling Israel and on the Trump administration.

The Conference of the Cooperation Council of Iranian Left and Communist Forces once again, in the strongest terms, condemns more than seven decades of occupation and oppression by the ethnic, religious–fascist Israeli state and the recent two-year genocide against the Palestinian people and Gaza. It stands with the just demands of the Palestinian people and believes that:

– The fragile ceasefire currently in place must become permanent, and the shadow of war must be lifted forever from the people of Palestine and Gaza.

– Trump’s 20-point “neo-colonialist” plan is unilateral, in favour of the fascist Israeli state and against the fundamental and basic rights of the Palestinian people. This plan aims to turn the Gaza Strip into a “giant camp,” with residents permanently dependent on aid from governments and international institutions. It is an international anti-social and anti-popular conspiracy.

– Sovereignty over the Gaza Strip and the administration of its affairs must be entrusted to the direct representatives of the people themselves. Gaza’s citizens, free from occupation and military coercion by the Israeli army or threats from Hamas, can, under normal conditions and under the supervision of the United Nations or another international body, elect their direct representatives to administer society. In this regard, the plan for a trusteeship of “Trump and Palestinian technocrats” is unacceptable to us. Furthermore, Gaza must be reconstructed with the provision of all the resources befitting dignified human life today.

– We demand the enforcement of the “ruling of the International Criminal Court” for the arrest and prosecution of Netanyahu, Gallant, and other organizers of genocide and mass murder in Palestine and Gaza.

We also demand an end to the occupation by the Israeli apartheid regime and believe that without full recognition of Palestinian rights, peace in the Middle East will not be achieved. The establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders is the most effective possible solution to ending the cycle of violence and killing against Palestinians and the people of Israel.

Down with the capitalist system of the Islamic Republic

Long live freedom – long live socialism

Cooperation Council of Iranian Left and Communist Forces

January 2026