An emergency rally was held in Sea Point, Cape Town, at the weekend. Picture: Shakirah Thebus/Salaamedia
Hundreds of people gathered for an emergency rally for Palestine at the Mandela Glasses art installation at the Sea Point Promenade on Saturday.
Organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), the mass rally was endorsed and supported by a large number of organisations, social movements, solidarity organisations, trade unions, religious bodies, and political parties.
Guest speaker, anti-apartheid activist Reverend Frank Chikane, provided an update on the South African Chapter of the Global Anti-Apartheid Movement launched in November 2024.
Chikane said the South African Chapter of the Global Anti-Apartheid Movement would convene for its first meeting this Tuesday, February 25. He said the movement comprises all Palestinian solidarity groups in the country, as well as religious communities, trade unions, political parties, and community groups.
“We are trying to make sure that this movement represents everybody in the country,” Chikane said.
“On Tuesday, we will agree on a programme of action and this programme of action is based on the declaration of the conference last year. Then we did a plan of action, that plan of action involves boycotts of anything that comes from Israel or goes to Israel. We boycott everything that comes from Israel or goes to Israel. And we have talked with the trade union federations and they have agreed that we’re going to deal with those products that are sent to Israel and they have said they will support it. It will affect workers and they are working on a way in which we can do it with the least impact on workers.”
He said the movement would ensure that it becomes costly to collaborate and support Israel.
“We must make it costly and we must make sure that that (Israeli) economy collapses and we must make sure lastly that we mobilise the world so that we’re not going to work alone.”
Chikane said the rally was to speak with one unifying voice in calling for an end to the genocide and occupation of Palestine.
Chikane equated Zionism with support for genocide.
“(Donald) Trump has just defined himself as genocidal and that he qualifies to be charged under the Genocide Convention. You can’t plan to remove Palestinians from their homes and then expect not to be charged in terms of the 1948 Genocide Convention.”
Jaamia Galant of the PSC also highlighted the dire humanitarian crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan.
“Let us also bear in mind that we are witnessing horrific war crimes, death and destruction within the DRC and Sudan, with tacit support or silence from Western imperialist powers. So as we stand in solidarity with the besieged people of Palestine, so too we stand in solidarity with the war-ravaged people of the DRC, and the Sudan.”
While Israel was releasing some Palestinian detainees, it was simultaneously detaining more in the West Bank.
PSC’s Martin Jansen said the PSC would be taking the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to the High Court over its failure to arrest and prosecute South Africans serving in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
Through this action, the PSC aims to compel the NPA to arrest and prosecute South Africans for contravening the Regulation of the Foreign Military Assistance Act, 1998 (Act No. 15 of 1998).
Jansen said that no South African has formally applied to serve in the IDF and is therefore in contravention of the Act, which requires any person intending to serve militarily in a foreign country to first apply to the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), which will then make a recommendation to the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans for the application to be granted or refused.
“One of the biggest problems that we’ve had with our solidarity campaign for many years is the fact that there are South Africans, many of them from this area by the way, who are serving in the Israeli Occupation Forces and killing our brothers and sisters in Palestine. And for the past 10 years as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, we have been trying hard to get them prosecuted. In 2014, we referred the first case (our case) to the NPA and the Hawks.”
For the past 10 years, the PSC has been struggling to get the NPA to make arrests and prosecute such cases.
“The bad news is that the NPA has done nothing to those people and they are still serving and they come here for holidays in Camps Bay, Sea Point, all over South Africa and then they go back to kill our Palestinian brothers and sisters.”
The PSC has called on the Government to move beyond condemnatory statements and actions taken at the International Court of Justice and to implement a comprehensive isolation of Israel by cutting all economic, educational, sporting, and cultural ties.
The organisation said this could be done by applying sanctions, divestment, and boycotts, including stopping exports of coal, diamonds, and agricultural products.
PSC also called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and the ending of all diplomatic relations with Israel.
The organisation has also urged the government to pass the “Apartheid Convention Bill” into law to prosecute perpetrators of oppression.
Political parties present and supporting the demands and the Apartheid Convention Bill included the ANC, EFF, MK, Al Jama-ah, and the GOOD parties.
It also called on the South African Government to lead the way in the African Union, BRICS, and UN, for all countries to apply the same measures.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza stated at least 48,291 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and 111,722 have been injured between October 7, 2023, and February 18, 2025. However, these figures are largely believed to be an underestimate.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), between October 7, 2023, and February 17, 2025, 883 Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
According to the most recent UNRWA Situation Report, Israel’s large-scale military operation launched on January 21, 2025, in Jenin Camp in the West Bank is now the single longest operation by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the Second Intifada in the 2000s.
According to the United Nations, at least 1.9 million people, or 90% of the population across the Gaza Strip, have been displaced since the start of the genocide, many repeatedly displaced, some up to 10 times or more.
The Ministry of Public Works and Housing reported that 92% of homes have been either severely damaged or destroyed.
