Johnathan Paoli
THE EFF has expressed its outrage and affirmed its solidarity with the plight of the Palestinian people while calling for the complete isolation of not only Israel, but its allies – both states and civil society partners who are involved in the killing of civilians and patients in Gaza.
The party on Wednesday held a bilateral meeting with the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, led by Dr. Basem Naim, who leads International Relations for the movement, along with Emad Saber, and the EFF delegation led by CIC Julius Malema and the party leadership, at Winnie Madikizela Mandela House.
Spokesperson Sinawo Thambo said members were given a first-hand account of the gruesome conditions confronting the Palestinian people at the hands of the racist, Zionist, and Apartheid-Israel and its allies, namely the US, he said.
The engagement revealed a chilling humanitarian crisis, including the destruction of hospitals and, critically, the lack of medical supplies, water, and food in the hospitals that remain intact in Gaza.
The spokesperson said that more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, the majority of whom are women and children, while civilians and freedom fighters were detained for long periods and given life sentences without a fair trial.
“The Apartheid-Israeli State is effectively involved in the mass-scale kidnapping of Palestinian people,” Thambo said.
One of the major discussion points for the meeting centred around the complicity of Israeli civil society and professionals in the genocide of Palestinian people, including the active involvement of a group known as the Doctors for the Rights of Israeli Soldiers in calling for the bombing of hospitals, including the Al-Shifa Hospital.
The group is a collective of Israel medical professionals who have recently been in the news due to a controversial statement they made in justifying signing a petition calling for the bombing of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, claiming it was a “legitimate right” because they believe it serves as a base for Palestinian armed groups.
Thambo called for the immediate allowance of the provision of medication, water, and food to all hospitals in Gaza, and for shelters and hospitals to no longer be targets of bombings by Israel and its allies, who have declared patients, women, children, and civilians as terrorists.
“There is no military strategy that ought to involve the killing of women and children, as this only reveals a determination to commit genocide,” Thambo said.
Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hamas in an expanding offensive into southern Gaza on Wednesday, forcing tens of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians to cram into a city close to the Egyptian border to avoid Israeli bombardment.
As Israel broadened its ground onslaught after largely taking control of north Gaza last month, Palestinian medics said Gaza’s hospitals were overflowing with dead and wounded, many of them women and children, and supplies were running out.
INSIDE POLITICS
