South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa has accused Israel of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.
Ramaphosa declared this as he chaired an extraordinary summit of the BRICS group of nations on Tuesday.
“The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force by Israel is a war crime. The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza is tantamount to genocide.
“As individual countries, we have demonstrated our grave concern at the death and destruction in Gaza,” he told the summit.
“Let this meeting stand as a clarion call for us to combine our efforts and strengthen our actions to end this historical injustice”, Ramaphosa stated.
Ramaphosa made the comment in during a virtual meeting of BRICS, a group of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — aimed at drawing up a common response to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
CRUX NEWS reports that the conflict broke out after Hamas gunmen killed over 1,000 people in Israel during cross-border raids on October 7.
In retaliation, Israel launched a relentless bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas.
The war has killed more than 13,000 people, thousands of them children.
Speaking on Tuesday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh stated that a truce agreement with Israel was in sight, with mediator Qatar adding negotiations to free hostages seized by the Palestinian Islamist group were at their “closest point” to a deal.
