South African President Cyril Ramaphosa accused Israel of war crimes and “genocide” in Gaza, during an extraordinary summit of the BRICS group of nations on yesterday.
Pretoria is hosting a virtual meeting of BRICS aimed at drawing up a common response to the Israeli attacks on Gaza. BRICS is a group of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
President Ramaphosa, calling the attacks a ‘collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force’, labelled Israel’s actions a war crime. He also accused Israel of deliberately denying the supply of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza, calling it genocide.
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Fighting has raged in Gaza after Hamas gunmen killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, during cross-border raids on October 7. Hamas says Israel’s retaliatory attacks have killed more than 13,300 people, thousands of them children.
On Tuesday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said 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.
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