A PRESS STATEMENT

 

The gruesome and ghastly scenes of a massacre at Nuseirat Camp after attacks from the air, land and sea have so far been unprecedented in what was already a brutal Israeli genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, now in its ninth month.

 

In the “rescue operation” of four captives on Saturday 8th June, the genocidal Israeli army killed at least 270 Palestinians, leaving a further 700 injured.

 

Nuseirat in Central Gaza, is a camp because residents here are refugees from towns and villages ethnically-cleansed and obliterated by Apartheid Israel in 1948. The camp, was meant to be a “safe zone,” hence, a place of refuge for thousands of Palestinians who have been displaced from parts of the territory, many times over, since the onslaught on Gaza, in October 2023. Yet, mothers and sons, daughters and fathers, were left to gather, in the words of a UN official, “shredded bodies on the ground.” EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, called it a “massacre.”

 

The irresponsible adventurism of this operation, abetted by the USA, and the celebration of its outcome in Tel Aviv and in other Western capitals, represent a total disregard for innocent Palestinian lives, subjected to war crimes. The attack, yet again, underscores the hypocrisy of the Biden Administration which on one hand calls for a ceasefire, and on another, condones a total destruction of a population.

 

The Jamiatul Ulama South Africa (JUSA) condemns this callous mass-murder of civilians, in total contempt for human life and international conventions. JUSA reiterates its call for the continuing mobilisation of the international solidarity movement in order to stop the impunity, isolate Israel, and end the support for this genocidal blood-letting.

 

During the special nights of Dhu al Hijjah, let us all remember our brethren, in Gaza and other Occupied Palestinian Territories. May the blood of the martyrs water the seed of liberation and may the All-Hearing heed the cries of the maimed and traumatised, and grant them succour. Āmīn.

 

Executive Committee
Jamiatul Ulama South Africa

 

04 Dhu al Hijjah 1445 / 11 June 2024