With their mouths taped and dressed in black, several women from the organisation Mothers4Gaza held a silent protest to draw attention to and condemn the starvation and genocide in Gaza, Palestine.
Each held up an enlarged printed letter, together spelling out “STOP GENOCIDE” during their silent protest in Sea Point, Cape Town, on Saturday.
Organisers said the protest represented those who refuse to normalise mass starvation and ethnic cleansing.
In Gaza, over 60 000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, including 18 500 children since October 2023. At least 154 people have died from starvation, including 89 children since 7 October 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
According to UNICEF, nearly all of Gaza’s 1.2 million children require mental health and psychosocial support due to symptoms such as depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and more.
Irene Knight, a member of Mothers4Gaza, said they wanted to stand in solidarity with the mothers and children in Palestine through their action.
“There’s been so much devastation in Palestine. There has been the bombings and the starvation- starvation brought about by the Israeli regime. But there doesn’t seem to be an urgency in the world to actually stop it and we came here to protest that.”
She said what is required now is for Western governments funding and arming Israel to stop immediately.
“Governments and institutions that have been quiet and complicit, we need them to stop this genocide. We need them to stop Israel from annihilating Palestine,” Knight said.
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Greer Blizzard, a member of Mothers4Gaza, said that having lived through apartheid in South Africa, she recognises the same system of apartheid in occupied Palestine.
She said Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have been facing extreme apartheid for decades and now was the time to bring an end to it.
“Its not just about Gaza, it’s such a bigger issue. The world is facing a situation where there is one rogue state literally holding the world ransom, which is the state of Israel. And if you look at Western powers, they are complicit in this.”
Another member, Liesl Jobson said: “We’re standing here to protest the starvation of the children, we’re here to protest against the genocide. And by standing in public… there are many Jewish folks who are still true to the notion that Zionism is a legitimate expression, and it’s a deeply problematic understanding. So I came to have my voice counted.”
For consecutive days prior, protests by pro-Palestine activists and supporters have taken place at the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, the British Consulate General in Cape Town, and the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Pretoria.
As the women stood in silent protest in Sea Point, another protest took place outside Cape Union Mart at the V&A Waterfront over its reported links to Israel.
While thousands of trucks carrying lifesaving food and other humanitarian aid remain stalled in Egypt, Jordan, and at the Kerem Shalom crossing, an increasing number of Palestinians in Gaza are succumbing to the famine engineered by Israel.
Air drops of aid have taken place; however, this system has been widely criticised for being dangerous, costly, and often ineffective.
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UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini posted on his X account that airdrops are at least 100 times more costly than trucks, which can also carry twice as much aid as planes.
“If there is political will to allow airdrops – which are highly costly, insufficient and inefficient, there should be similar political will to open the road crossings,” Lazzarini said.
He said UNRWA alone had 6 000 trucks filled with aid stuck outside Gaza “waiting for the green light to enter”.
The women also held up images of emaciated children and adults, starved as a result of the Israeli blockade that restricts food and other essential humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), an increasing number of people are being killed or injured while searching for food, as evidenced by casualties occurring at or near aid convoys or aid sites, particularly those run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation where the Israeli Defence Forces have opened fire on civilians including children.
Image: Shakirah Thebus
