More than 3,000 people marched through Cape Town Saturday, calling for South Africa to cut trade and diplomatic ties with Israel, including by shutting its embassy, over the war in Gaza.
Pretoria has been a leading critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, bringing a case before the UN’s top court in December 2023 that argues Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory amounts to genocide, a charge Israel has denied.
Saturday’s demonstration brought together several pro-Palestinian organisations, political parties, and Muslim and Christian groups in one of the biggest such turnouts in months.
Waving Palestinian flags and slogans such as “Don’t just feel bad, do something”, the procession handed over a petition of demands at parliament.
South Africa must “boycott, divest and sanction Israel, the same way as the world did for us,” said Palestine Solidarity Campaign coordinator, Usuf Chikte, referring to international measures used to pressure South Africa’s apartheid regime.
The government has to take action on the “kicking out of Israel’s ambassador and embassy from South Africa now” and the country should be excluded from international sporting bodies such as FIFA, he told the crowd.
The petition also demanded the government suspend its exports of coal to Israel and prosecute any South Africans who enlist in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
The war in Gaza broke out after Palestinian militants led by Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
That unprecedented attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has since killed at least 65,926 people, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, figures the United Nations deems reliable.
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© Agence France-Presse
