South Africa: Israel’s bombing of Palestinians are violation of international law

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday that said Israel’s attacks against Palestinians are a violation of international law.

Ramaphosa also said there will never be peace until Israel’s ends its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.

“As lovers of freedom and of justice, we stand with the Palestinian people in their quest for self-determination, but also in their resistance against the deprivation of their human rights and the denial of their dignity,’’ Ramaphosa wrote in his weekly column.

“It also demonstrates that unless the root causes of a conflict are addressed, in this case the illegal occupation by Israel of Palestinian land and the denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, there will never be peace,’’ he wrote.

South Africa’s Cabinet last week issued a statement calling on Israel to stop "barbaric" attacks on Palestinians.

The blockaded Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank have been simmering with rage in the past weeks over the regime’s scheme to forcefully and illegally expel dozens of Palestinians from their homes in the volatile Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds as part of a long-running scheme to Judaize Palestinian lands.

The anger further intensified earlier this month with Israeli attacks on Palestinian worshipers in the al-Aqsa Mosque complex during the fasting days of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

Amid the tension, Israel launched yet another brutal aerial campaign against mainly civilian targets in Gaza on May 10. Since then, at least 212 Palestinians, including 61 children and 36 women, have been killed and 1400 others injured in the Israeli onslaught.

Ramaphosa said Israel’s actions are a violation of international law

“They show a total disregard for successive United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions that call for an end to the occupation of Palestinian land and for the fulfillment of the rights of the Palestinian people,’’ the former anti-apartheid activist note.

Ramaphosa said the sight of seeing a group of Palestinian families evicted from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem al-Quds to make way for Israel’s illegal settlements reminded him of what happened to millions of South Africans including his own family during apartheid.

“It was a pain and humiliation faced by my own family, and by many South African families. My family was forcibly moved to different parts of the country on two occasions,’’ he said.

“Being forced from one’s home at gunpoint is a trauma not easily forgotten, and is carried across generations. As a country we are still living with the residual effects of the callous acts carried out in the name of apartheid spatial planning,’’ he wrote.

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