Dozens of South Africans and supporters of Palestine demonstrated outside the Israeli embassy in Johannesburg Friday against the normalization agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
Members of #Africa4Palestine, the South African Communist Party, Swaziland Solidarity Network and trade union NEHAWU gathered for a picket at lunch time, and were addressed by a member of the Embassy of Palestine.
— #Africa4Palestine (@Africa4Pal) August 14, 2020
The protest, organized by South African organizations, condemned the US-sponsored UAE- Israel agreement reached on Thursday and demanding the immediate release of Nawajaa, coordinator of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, who was detained by Israel last month for his role in the boycott movement and for defending human rights of Palestinians under Israeli occupation.
Meanwhile, the protests called for the release from Israeli custody of Palestinian human rights defender Mahmoud Nawajaa.
On 9 August 2020, the occupation military court renewed the detention of Mahmoud Nawajaa for an additional eight days, in order to continue the investigation.
On 2 August 2020, Mahmoud Nawajaa appeared via videoconference (due to COVID-19 restrictions) for a hearing in an Israeli military court near Jenin; the court ordered the human rights defender to be detained for an additional 15 days.
On 30 July 2020, several Israeli soldiers stormed the house of human rights defender Mahmoud Nawajaa and arrested him.
“Certain Arab governments have a record of colluding with the USA in their oppressive policies in the Middle East, however, we know that the Arab peoples, on the other hand, have always stood against oppression,” #Africa4Palestine said in a statement after the event.
Yesterday, US President Donlad Trump announced that he had brokered a deal which would see the Emirates and Israel normalise ties and begin the establishment of diplomatic and trade missions in each others’ countries.
The UAE said the move would stop Tel Aviv annexing large swathes of the occupied West Bank as it had promised to do, however Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a press conference yesterday that “There is no change in our plan to extend sovereignty to Judea and Samaria…It is not off the table as far as I am concerned.”
“The USA once tried to use African governments to collude with Apartheid South Africa so we are familiar with such tactics,” #Africa4Palestine continued in its statement.
#Africa4Palestine is planning more protests in the future.
Sources:
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/
https://twitter.com/Africa4Pal/
https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/
http://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/118875
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