Palestinian attack is response ‘to brutality of Israeli apartheid regime’, ANC says

The ANC has called for peace in the Gaza Strip, describing the Palestinian territories’ reality as a replica of apartheid SA.

Party spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, Israel is a blatant apartheid state that methodically imposes privilege on Jewish Israelis’ behalf and discriminates against Palestinians.

“According to a report by Human Rights Watch, ‘the laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power and land has long guided government policy’.”

In pursuit of this goal, Israeli authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated and subjugated Palestinians by their identity to varying degrees of intensity, she said.

“It can no longer be disputed apartheid SA’s history is occupied Palestine’s reality. As a result, the decision by Palestinians to respond to the brutality of the settler Israeli apartheid regime is unsurprising.”

Bhengu-Motsiri said the ANC stands with the Palestinians as it is clear the degenerating security situation is directly linked to the unlawful Israeli occupation.

“Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and displacing the local population contravenes fundamental rules of international humanitarian law. The Fourth Geneva Convention states: ‘The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

The article prohibits “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”, Bhengu-Motsiri said.

“The extensive appropriation of land and the theft and destruction of property required to build and expand settlements also breach other rules of international humanitarian law. Under The Hague Regulations of 1907, the public property of the occupied population (such as lands, forests and agricultural estates) is subject to the laws of usufruct. This means an occupying state only allows a minimal use of this property.”

The governing party said the limitation is derived from the notion that occupation is temporary, the core idea of the law of occupation.

“In the words of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the occupying power ‘has a duty to ensure the protection, security, and welfare of the people living under occupation and to guarantee they can live as normal a life as possible, in accordance with their own laws, culture, and traditions’.

“The Hague Regulations prohibit the confiscation of private property. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the destruction of personal or state property ‘except where such destruction is rendered necessary by military operations’.”

The ANC said the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque had escalated violence and conflict in the West Bank.

“It is yet another instalment of conflict in Israel and occupied Palestine which has not been met with a credible response by the international community, particularly the UN and the International Criminal Court.”

The ANC called for UN resolutions and international law to be adhered to and called for all sides “to seize the opportunity for peace”.

“The international community can no longer avoid its duty to act. The ANC supports calls for the international community to actively rise on the side of its international resolutions and establish a credible peace process to bring the realisation of a two state solution based on 1967 borders, which also consider a right of return for displaced Palestinians.”

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