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President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet has urged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to ensure strict compliance with the resolution passed earlier this week calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
After more than five months of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the UNSC on Monday adopted the resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire and the release of captives in the enclave for the month of Ramadan. The United States, a key ally of Israel, abstained from the vote, marking a departure from its previous stance of using its veto power to block similar resolutions.
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Despite the UNSC's call for a ceasefire, Israel’s military operations in Gaza have continued unabated as it gears up for a ground operation in Rafah city in southern Gaza, which is home to 1.2 million people, mainly displaced Palestinians.
UNSC resolutions 'binding on all parties'
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni on Thursday said Cabinet welcomed the UNSC's resolution for the unconditional release of all hostages, and the urgent need to expand the flow of aid into Gaza.
Ntshavheni, speaking at a post-Cabinet briefing in Tshwane on the outcomes of Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, said the ceasefire resolution was a “re-affirmation of the correctness of South Africa’s position on the need to prevent the genocide and the violations of the human rights of Palestinians and the release of hostages by Hamas.”
The minister said that UNSC resolutions were binding on all parties to the conflict, including Israel and Hamas militants.
She said:
Ntshavheni further reiterated Cabinet’s position that the security of both Israeli and Palestinian populations can only be guaranteed through a Two-State Solution, with each state coexisting alongside the other within the borders established in 1967.
'Israel's actions meet threshold for genocide'
The UNSC's ceasefire resolution for Gaza came in the same week in which Francesca Albanese, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council. The report, released on Tuesday, found that there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
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In response to the report, Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva slammed the use of the term "genocide" as "outrageous" and said that their military actions in Gaza were targeted at Hamas, not Palestinian civilians.
Speaking to City Press, Professor Siphamandla Zondi, a political analyst and international relations expert, said that the UNSC resolution implies that while the Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 was deemed “objectionable” - Israel's response appeared “disproportionate and calculated to achieve aims other than a response, including regime change in Gaza and re-occupation on a full scale.”
Zondi also noted that the adoption of the resolution had strained relations between Israel and the US due to the latter's decision to abstain from the vote.
He said:
Zondi said he believes that the US abstention was a shift in stance from the Biden administration regarding its support for Israel. He said that Washington's decision effectively left Israel to fend for itself against global scrutiny.
“Since the default position is to veto resolutions critical of Israel's war on Gaza, not to veto is a major change in the US position. Abstaining was to leave Israel to defend itself against the whole world,” Zondi said.
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On the findings by the UN's Special Rapporteur on the human rights conditions in Palestinian territories, particularly the potential genocidal actions attributed to Israel in Gaza, Zondi said that these findings bolstered South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
He said:
Zondi said the Special Rapporteur’s report informed discussions and resolutions of the UN Human Rights Council “whose judgments have such legitimacy that the international community can base its opinions and actions on it”.
He remarked:
Zondi added that South Africa could use the report as a record that backed its case against Israel.
“The Human Rights Council will discuss and properly adopt it by a huge vote confirming that the international community disapproves of Israel's war on Gaza. This deepens Tel Aviv's international isolation,” he said.
