Cape Town, South Africa - 29 December 2023: Cape Town supporters of Palestine came together at the Sea Point Promenade to hold a vigil for health workers and journalists killed in Gaza since 7 October. There has been international criticism of Israel for the injuries and deaths of journalists and health workers killed in the Gaza Strip since it started retaliatory attacks since the attacks by Hamas.

Attiya Khan, a freelance journalist based in Cape Town, said: “So on the 22nd of October I was asked by the Palestine Solidarity Committee to make a speech about the role of the media in Palestine. At that time around 17 journalists were killed and already that figure was too much. Currently the figure stands at 105 journalists killed and it’s rising daily.”

Former South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool said: “This is not a religious struggle, it’s a struggle about dispossession. It is not a faith against faith, it is a struggle of land occupation. It is not a struggle about Muslims against Jews and Jews defending themselves as Muslims as the aggressor. This a struggle to free a people, the Palestinians, to give back their land and to ensure justice prevails and peace is the foundation of that justice.”

Since October 7 there have been large scale protests in South Africa in support of the Palestinians. South Africa has also withdrawn its diplomatic mission from Israel.