DURBAN - WHILE South Africa said it was geared up to provide support to any locals trapped in the strife-torn Gaza Strip, Palestinian support groups have called for a decisive international stance against Israel, including cutting diplomatic ties.
But SA-based Israel-aligned organisations have slammed SA’s “one-sided and blinkered” approach to the violence, arguing that Israel had also received its fair share of attacks.
More than 122 Palestinians, including 31 children, were killed in bombings by the Israeli army, according to the SA BDS Coalition, a Palestinian support body.
Reuters reported that 10 people had been killed in Israel, including two children, according to Israeli authorities.
While the #Africa4Palestine movement expected similar flare-ups in the future, based on past experience, the World Head and Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has refuted Israeli claims that Israel’s targets were Palestinian militants, saying innocent civilians were being attacked.
Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad called on the international Muslim world to form a united front and speak out against the attacks.
“There is a complete lack of unity among the Muslim nations. Certainly, in this instance, the Muslim countries have failed to show the reaction they ought to have. They have given weak statements, whereas if they had all come together and given a united statement it would have had far greater impact and carried much more weight,” Ahmad said, adding “if the Palestinians are using sticks, they are (in turn) being subjected to heavy missiles and sophisticated weaponry …
“There is no comparison in terms of the force being used by both sides.”
The conflict was reminiscent of the 2003 incident in which 2 000 people were killed, followed by another in 2009, when more than 2 400 lives were lost, #Africa4Palestine’s spokesperson Tisetso Magama said.
“What is happening there is a form of ethnic cleansing that is typical with a colonialist regime of oppression on the part of Israel,” Magama said.
“The international community needs to join hands and speak in one strong voice to say Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory must be withdrawn, because that is the fundamental issue at the core of these acts of violence,” he said.
“As long as Israel continues its colonial presence in the region, we are most definitely going to gaze in contempt as similar flare-ups happen in the near
future,” he said.
“Yet again the world is witnessing horrific events perpetrated by the apartheid Israeli state,” said the SA BDS Coalition. It said Saturday marked the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, that saw 750 000 Palestinians expelled from their homeland ahead of the establishment of the State of Israel.
“Seventy-three years later, the Nakba is ongoing,” the organisation said.
“The world cannot continue its silence and inaction. The time is now for our government to call for sanctions and isolate apartheid Israel. SA must cut all bilateral relations including trade, diplomatic, sport and academic ties. Apartheid Israel must be isolated as apartheid SA was in support of the just resistance of the Palestinian people for peace, justice and equal rights,” it stated.
Islamic Relief, an international humanitarian aid organisation operating in over 40 countries including Palestine, said: “We are currently working through our head office, Islamic Relief Worldwide, who are providing emergency assistance (to victims) through our partner offices in Gaza. We do not
have staff or partners from SA who are currently working on the ground in Gaza as our work is implemented by (foreign) partners offices,” spokesperson Fernaaz Hussain said.
The South African government condemned Israel for the violence, whose casualties, it said, were largely women and children.
“The continued escalation of attacks by Israel on Palestinians in Gaza is totally unjust and shameful, particularly the targeting of the most vulnerable section of the Palestinian community, children, women and the elderly,” Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) spokesperson Clayson Monyela said.
“SA also urges Israel to stop all planned evictions of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah area. Disturbing images of Israel’s ongoing attacks on Palestinians, which violates UN resolutions justifies an urgent call for the intervention of the international community and to have the Israeli government’s conduct investigated and referred to the ICC for crimes against humanity,” said Monyela.
SA said it was calling on all countries in the Middle East to respond positively to the Arab League’s foreign ministers’ plan to immediately convene an emergency meeting aimed at mediation.
“We also call on the UN Security Council and quartet to convene an urgent meeting between Israel and Palestine to discuss the peace process without any pre-conditions,” he said.
To provide aid for locals who might be caught up in the conflict, Dirco can be contacted via the department’s 24-hour operations centre at 012 351 1000.
Zev Krengel, the vice-president of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, and Benji Shulman, the director of public policy with the SA Zionist Federation, in a joint statement said: “There has got to be acknowledgement that there is suffering by ordinary civilians on both sides of this conflict.”
Describing the situation as a war, the organisations claimed that almost 3 000 rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli cities, adding that about 450 of those had failed to hit home but had instead fallen inside the Gaza Strip. They said this had resulted
in civilian deaths of Palestinians.
They said while SA’s Dirco should be commended for showing concern for innocent civilians, the Israeli-aligned groups rejected what it described as support for the Palestinian side only.
“Having set up a 24-hour hotline to assist South Africans to make contact with Gaza, the SA government forgets the fears that SA Jewish citizens have for their families who have been indiscriminately targeted by Hamas and their rockets.
“Furthermore, Dirco’s statement wanting Israel’s conduct referred to the International ICC reveals its own blinkered obsession with Israel.
“This is the same government that deliberately failed to present former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to the ICC when he was here and SA was obliged to do so as a state party to the Rome Statute.
“The double-standards of our government and the way it chooses to treat Israel differently from any other country need to be called out,” their statement said.
THE MERCURY