Most South African lawmakers on Tuesday (Nov. 21) backed a motion calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy and the cutting of diplomatic ties until Israel agrees to a cease-fire in Gaza. The government will\u00a0decide whether South Africa cuts all ties with Israel.<\/p>\n
The vote on the motion supported by the ruling African National Congress party came as President Cyril Ramaphosa in a meeting with other world leaders accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza with its military offensive in the beseiged territory in search of its Hamas militant rulers.<\/p>\n
The motion tabled by the opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters received the support of 248 parliament members while 91 lawmakers opposed it.<\/p>\n
The vote came after Israel’s foreign ministry said it had recalled its ambassador to South Africa, Eliav Belotserkovsky, back to Jerusalem \u201cfor consultations.”<\/p>\n
The two countries\u2019 diplomatic relations have witnessed a rise in tensions over the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa previously said his country believes Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians have been killed.<\/p>\n
South Africa announced last week that it had referred what it called Israel\u2019s \u201cgenocide\u201d in Gaza to the International Criminal Court for an investigation.<\/p>\n
Its cabinet has called on the ICC to issue an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, South Africa withdrew all its diplomatic staff from Israel.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa’s new comments Tuesday (Nov. 21) came in a virtual meeting of BRICS countries attended by leaders of the bloc including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n
In a joint statement, the BRICS bloc said they called for “an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.”<\/p>\n
Tensions between Israel and Hamas flared again after the Palestinian militant group launched a surprise attacks on Israel on Oct.7 killed about 1,200 people.<\/p>\n
Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza have killed more than 12,700 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.<\/p>\n
During an interview to broadcaster SABC News the former South African ambassador to Israel,\u00a0Sisa Ngombane, commended the “voice of the people of South Africa” that was expressed “through parliament”.<\/p>\n
After the symbolic vote, it is now up to the South African executive to decide whether the country will cut ties with Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most South African lawmakers on Tuesday (Nov. 21) backed a motion calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy and the cutting of diplomatic ties until Israel agrees to a cease-fire in Gaza. The government will\u00a0decide whether South Africa cuts all ties with Israel. The vote on the motion supported by the ruling African National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"AP","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1129,30],"tags":[1586,1588,122],"class_list":["post-9984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-security","category-southern-africa","tag-gaza","tag-israel","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}