The lives of Palestinians are worse than anything black South Africans experienced under apartheid, Nelson Mandela’s grandson has said, urging the global community to come to their aid.
Mandla Mandela, 51, spoke to Reuters at Johannesburg Airport, where he was boarding a flight to Tunisia to join a flotilla aiming to deliver food and humanitarian supplies to Gaza despite an Israeli naval blockade.
Starvation is widespread in the enclave, according to the World Food Programme, and an authoritative hunger monitor says a quarter of the population are suffering from famine.
“Many of us that have visited the occupied territories in Palestine have only come back with one conclusion: that the Palestinians are experiencing a far worse form of apartheid than we ever experienced,” Mandela said.
“We believe that the global community has to continue supporting the Palestinians, just as they stood side-by-side with us.”
Mandela is joining a group of 10 South African activists in the Global Sumud Flotilla, which includes dozens of boats and hundreds of people from 44 countries including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has long said its own struggle against apartheid was echoed by the campaign for a Palestinian state. In 1997, three years after he had been elected South Africa’s president, Nelson Mandela said: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
His grandson yesterday emphasised that, when apartheid ended in 1994, it was after intense pressure and sanctions from other nations.
“They isolated apartheid South Africa and finally collapsed it. We believe that the time has come for that to be done for the Palestinians,” he said.
His remarks come as Israeli bombardment pushed more Palestinians out of their homes in Gaza City yesterday.
Thousands of residents defied Israeli orders to leave, remaining behind in the ruins in the path of Israel’s latest advance.
Gaza health authorities said Israeli fire across the enclave had killed at least 53 people yesterday, most of them in Gaza City, where Israeli forces have advanced through the outer suburbs and are now a few kilometres from the city centre.
Israel launched the offensive in Gaza City on August 10, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says is a plan to defeat Hamas once and for all in the part of Gaza where Israeli troops fought most heavily in the war’s initial phase.
The campaign has prompted international criticism because of the dire humanitarian crisis in the area.
Palestinian and UN officials say there is no safe place in Gaza, including areas Israel designates humanitarian zones.
Health officials in Gaza say 370 people, including 131 children, have so far died of malnutrition and starvation caused by acute food shortages, most in recent weeks.
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