Israel was hit by an unprecedented rocket attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7, with Hamas movement's troops infiltrating border areas. On October 8, the Israeli government announced that it had invoked Article 40 of the Basic Law, which means the country was officially in a state of war.

'Netanyahu Must Be Arrested Now': Secretary-General of SA's ANC Urges ICC to Arrest Israel's PM

14:40, 30 November 2023

Christina Glazkova

Writer / Editor

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In mid-November, South Africa and other states submitted a joint referral to the International Criminal Court in an effort to ensure that the court takes immediate notice of the catastrophic situation in Palestine. Later, South Africa expressed its hopes that the court would issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu by mid-December.

Sputnik

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested by the ICC, Fikile Mbalula, the secretary-general of the South Africa's ruling party African National Congress, said at the Palestine solidarity march in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

"If the ICC can take a decision about Ukraine and that Putin must be arrested, why are they leaving out a murderer Netanyahu who's killing children, who's bombing hospitals, who's bombing refugee camps?" Mbalula said in the video in his X (formerly Twitter) account.

Mbalula also emphasized the importance of creating a Palestinian state and called the events happening in the Middle East a "genocide" of the Palestinians.

"This is the struggle against the occupation, this is the struggle for the self-determination of the people of Palestine. And this is what we want. [To] bring order, bring about peace. It is to ensure that the people of Palestine are free and [...] guaranteed of a state of their own. What is happening there, comrades, is not war, it is genocide, it is the killing of innocent people," Mbalula stated.

He continued, saying that the ANC is calling for the closure of the Israel embassy as soon as possible, and linked the current situation in Palestine to apartheid in South Africa.

"We will not fold our arms and keep quiet when other people elsewhere in the world, especially those who've been oppressed like us, subjected to apartheid like it is happening with the Palestinian people," the secretary-general assured.

Mbalula later referred to Israel's prime minister as a "murderer."

"As the ANC we regard Netanyahu as a murderer who is shameless and who does not think twice, he's a warmonger, that's what he is," he said.

Israel-Palestine Escalation

South Africa to File Request to ICC & ICJ to Designate Israel as Apartheid State

21 November 2023, 14:18

With the new round of violence in the conflict between Israel and Palestine erupting in early October, relations between South Africa and Israel have deteriorate, and at the beginning of November, South Africa withdrew of all of its diplomats in Tel Aviv.

Along with petitioning the ICC to ensure that the court gives urgent attention to the situation in Palestine, the South African Cabinet expressed hope that the ICC would issue an international arrest warrant for Netanyahu and other senior Israeli top-officials by mid-December.

Last week, South African parliament voted in favor of closing the Israeli embassy.

After an attack by the Palestinian organization Hamas on October 7, Israel declared war, resulting in conflicting casualty figures from Palestinian Health Ministry (at least 16,000) and Israel (around 1,200).