A judicial case has been brought against Israel by South Africa at the International Judicial of Justice (ICJ) over the mass murder of 23,210 Palestinians in Gaza. It was estimated that women and children made up 70% of the population among the dead bodies. As UN officials claim that Gaza is gradually becoming "uninhabitable," tensions in the courts are growing.
The application from South Africa has been supported by several nations, including Turkey, Jordan, Brazil, Columbia, Bolivia, Pakistan, and Malaysia, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation(OIC).
The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening. South Africa decided to sue Israel for its wrongdoings after watching helpless people around Gaza But, the million-dollar question is, why South Africa? Since South Africa has shown their support for Palestinians and backed their right to self-determination, considering them to be subject to a long-standing regime of apartheid-like South Africa was.
This could be attributed to the strong alliance between the late leader, Nelson Mandela, of the African National Congress (ANC), and Yasser Arafat, former president of the state of Palestine and Palestine Liberation Organization. The African National Congress, which is in power in South Africa, has long drawn comparisons between Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank and the country's past under the apartheid system of white minority rule, which up until 1994 required Black people to live in areas designated as their "homelands."
The minister of international relations and cooperation for South Africa, Naledi Pandor, said in a statement on November 7 that "today we join the world in expressing horror at the war crimes being committed in Palestine through the targeting of civilians, civilian infrastructure, UN premises, and other vulnerable targets."
Reports from Aljazeera News mention that despite opposition from the Democratic Alliance of the White Majority, South Africa has remained steadfast in its support of the Palestine cause. The ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), remains firm in its decision despite opposition from the Democratic Alliance, formed of the White Majority. In a television interview on June 21, 1990, in the United States, Mandela addressed Arafat as a "comrade in arms."
Political analyst, Levy Ndou, stated that "the people of Palestine showed solidarity to us when we were under apartheid rule." Ndou continued by saying that South Africans empathize with Palestinians because they are aware of the cruelties of Apartheid and to what extent their human rights were violated. The people of South Africa can easily relate to the events occurring in Palestine due to those who lived during the Apartheid era, lasting for around 30 years from 1948 to 1994.
However, as reported by Reuters, Israel denies accusations of genocide, telling the international court that it must "defend" itself and that it was fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian people. Israel has, thus, rejected South Africa's plea and asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to dismiss the case on the grounds of false accusations.
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Editor: Jaya Jha
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