Above photo: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the UN General Assembly. UN website.
South Africa called on the United Nations to deploy a rapid protection force for the Palestinian population in besieged Gaza.
The South African government on Monday urged the United Nations to deploy a rapid protection force to protect the Palestinian population in the besieged Gaza Strip from further Israeli bombardment.
“All countries genuinely committed to a rules-based system underpinned by international law must act immediately,” the South African foreign ministry said in a statement, adding:
“The numbers of non-combatants killed, especially the numbers of children killed, requires the world to show that it is serious about global accountability.”
In the statement, Pretoria called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for violating international law, while decrying the number of children killed in the war.
The statement quotes a report issued by UK-based charity Save the Children, which estimates that 3,200 children were killed in Gaza in the first three weeks of the war, exceeding the number killed annually in all the world’s conflict zones since 2019.
Since the beginning of the war, on October 7, Israel has killed over 8,300 Palestinians in Gaza, including 3,457 children, and wounded more than 21,000. Palestinian Ministry of Health reports and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
Despite a massive Israeli military buildup around the Gaza borders and sporadic infiltrations on the outskirts of the besieged Strip, Palestinian Resistance continues to repel Israeli attacks.
To justify its military failure, the Israeli army continues to pound civilian homes throughout the Gaza Strip with new massacres reported everywhere in the besieged enclave.
Gaza has been under a tight Israeli military siege since 2007, following a democratic election in occupied Palestine, the results of which were rejected by Tel Aviv and Washington.