In central Cape Town, South Africa, on Saturday, a few hundred individuals paraded, brandishing Palestinian flags and voicing anti-Israeli slogans in a demonstration supporting Gaza to commemorate the first anniversary of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Carrying signs accusing Israel of genocide and discrimination, the demonstrators, many of whom wore the keffiyeh scarf representing the Palestinian resistance against Israel, marched to parliament in a protest coordinated by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
“Israel is a racist state” and “We are all Palestinian”, chanted some of the marchers. Others held up placards stating: “We are all Hamas” or “Zionism is racism”.
Some demonstrators expressed their backing for South Africa’s claim in the International Court, asserting that the Israeli military action in Gaza, initiated following the October 7 assault on Israel by Hamas extremists, constitutes “genocide.”
Many South Africans often compare Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the racially oppressive apartheid system that enforced white-minority rule in South Africa until the first all-race election in 1994.
A memorandum demanding that the government implement the UN’s 1973 Apartheid Convention, which defines apartheid systems as a crime and allows for actions such as boycotts, was presented to parliament by the organisers of the march.
The South African government signed the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, also known as the Apartheid Convention, in May 2024.
Pro-Gaza demonstrations were also scheduled to take place on Saturday in Johannesburg and Durban, as well as in other cities around the world, in advance of the anniversary of the October 7 attack.