SA’s call for Haniyeh murder probe infuriates local zionists

Alameen Templeton

South Africa has infuriated local Zionists by demanding a full investigation into Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Pretoria’s statement warned repeatedly targeting of civilians in Gaza and the assassination of martyr Haniyeh “will further spiral the already tense situation in the entire region”.

“South Africa urges that a thorough investigation be conducted and calls on all parties to exercise the utmost restraint to avoid any acts that would escalate tensions in the particularly fragile region,” the South African Foreign Ministry said.

“The Government expresses its heartfelt condolences to the Haniyeh family as well as to the leadership and people of Palestine,” it added. 

South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola was in Tehran when the assassination happened. He was on an official visit alongside Haniyeh and other world leaders to attend the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

“Such acts of extrajudicial killings violate international law and the principles of human rights, undermining global efforts to promote peace and stability in the Middle East,” Lamola explained in the same statement.

“Any form of extrajudicial killing is a blatant violation of [interational law] principles and extra judicial killings of this nature have a destabilising effect. It is crucial that the perpetrators of such actions must be brought to justice,” he underscored. 

South Africa also condemned the ongoing “9-month onslaught in Gaza,” which has killed thousands of civilians and “created unspeakable manmade humanitarian catastrophe.”

Haniyeh was also “an integral member of the [Palestinian] negotiating team, working with other countries to secure a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire and bring the [war on Gaza] to an end.”

Pretoria reiterated its calls for an urgent ceasefire, an end to impunity, an end to the genocide of Palestinians, an end to the aggression on Palestinians end the aggression, and an end to the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine.

That was too much for the SA Jewish Board of Deputies which has cheered on the genocide unashamedly for over 300 days.

“Haniyeh used his position to amass extreme wealth, living in luxury in exile while the people he led suffered in poverty and hunger. Given Haniyeh’s history, the hypocrisy of the SA government’s statement is frankly ludicrous,” it said.

It claimed Haniyeh and Hamas had “extended the agonising plight of Gazans” by refusing to release all hostages grabbed on October 7. It said nothing of the thousands of Gazans abducted and tortured by Israeli stormtroopers since that day.

Feeding into the zionist trope that Hezbollah bombed a Druze village last Saturday, it accused Pretoria of having “no compassion for Druze children, if they do not feed into the department’s demonisation of the only Jewish state”.

They didn’t mention that members of Majdal Shams drove Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the village Monday when he arrived get some political mileage from their deaths.

Hezbollah has denied bombing the village and Druze leaders have slammed zionist efforts to capitalise on their children’s blood.