APA-Johannesburg (South Africa) South Africans need prior government approval to legally fight in Israel and failing this they would face prosecution at home, President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned.
Speaking to journalists in Johannesburg on Monday, Ramaphosa denounced the “genocidal onslaught and slaughter of the people of Palestine” and said South Africans fighting in Gaza could face prosecution at home.
He said the country’s State Security Agency was tracking down those South Africans reported to have joined the Israeli Defence Force and fighting in Gaza.
Naturalised citizens were at further risk of being stripped of their South African nationality for engaging in a war that the country “does not support or agree with,” the government said.
The war in Gaza broke out when the strip’s Islamist rulers Hamas launched an unprecedented attack in Israel on 7 October – killing 1,140 people, mostly civilians.
Some 250 people were taken hostage, while a hundred others were released in a temporary truce, according to press reports.
But the fighting resumed after a week, and Israel’s military has killed over 19,000 people, mostly women and children, while reducing vast areas of the enclave to rubble, Gaza’s health ministry said.
NM/jn/APA