Deputy President Paul Mashatile. Photo: GCIS
As the war in Gaza rages on, Deputy President Paul Mashatile says the South African government has not supplied Hamas with arms, financial aid or military assistance.
Mashatile was responding to oral questions from Freedom Front Plus MP Stephanus Du Toit in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Tuesday.
The state of Israel has been tenacious in accusing South Africa of being the ‘legal arm’ of Hamas, despite Pretoria dismissing the outlandish claims.
Mashatile said South Africa has not supplied Hamas or the Palestinian people, in a direct or indirect manner, with military equipment or financial aid that could have been utilised to purchase equipment in its defence against Israel.
“We have a way as a country in dealing with the issue of arms and how we sell arms and no such thing was done. We took a view that the intervention must be at a multilateral level… we don’t provide arms to anybody.
“We did condemn the indiscriminate killing of women and children by Hamas, Israelis we don’t condone that. So, we are not supplying any arms, we are working with others to supply humanitarian aid, particularly in Gaza, where they desperately need food and water,” Mashatile said.
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Mashatile said South Africa does not regret hauling Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its actions in Gaza and believes the “occupiers cannot have more rights than the people who own the land”.
He admitted that the government is aware that not every South African citizen in the country and abroad, supports the state’s action against Israel.
“We were the first to bring about the case against Israel. This was to compel Israel to stop the deadly and relentless genocide bombardment of Gaza. The UN Humanitarian Agency estimates that more than 30 000 Palestinians, including over 10 000 children, have been killed.
“The number of civilian casualties are well over 100 000 as we speak, amounting to around 5% of Gaza’s 2.5 million population. We will not condone genocide. South Africa’s condemnation of also Hamas for the indiscriminate and the wanton violence against civilians [has been documented]. Some civilians here at home and abroad have revised their views taking into consideration the death and sheer scale of human suffering,” he said.
Mashatile said the country would continue to pledge solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle to end all acts of the “apartheid system by the Israeli government, and the genocide emanating from that evil system and support their collective right to self-determination”.
“As President Nelson Mandela emphasised: ‘Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians’.”
Earlier this month, South Africa filed an urgent request to the ICJ for emergency measures over Israel’s war in Gaza.
South Africa asked the world court to enforce the additional emergency measures against Israel, accusing it of violating existing measures.
In its application to the ICJ, South Africa warned that Palestinians in Gaza were facing starvation, a crisis that had claimed the lives of several children.
In its January judgment that made headlines worldwide, the ICJ ordered Israel to take “all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip, but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.
South Africa, in its second application, stated that it is “compelled to return to the Court in light of the new facts and changes in the situation in Gaza — particularly the situation of widespread starvation”.
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