Former South African President Thabo Mbeki has called for a truce in Gaza and a return to the negotiating table to find a long-term solution.
On Monday, the Thabo Mbeki Foundation shared the former president’s remarks on the X social media site.
Mbeki’s remarks came nearly a week after South Africa made international news by filing a complaint against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Mbeki said the fighting must stop.
[ SA Legal Team For Case Against Israel At ICJ Returns Home, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi Speaks ]
“We need to get back to the negotiations about the future. Starting with the Palestinians, everybody agreed we need a two-state solution. Now there is only one state, the other one does not exist.
“Indeed the one state that exists has been doing many things to make it impossible for the emergence of the second state. It’s a prescription for conflict, inevitably, there will always be a conflict in a situation like that,” said Mbeki.
Last week, during oral arguments at the Peace Palace in The Hague, South Africa’s greatest legal minds argued that the World Court should grant it provisional measures to preserve Palestinian lives.
The legal team maintained that Israel’s reprisal on Gaza following Hamas’ attacks on 7 October amounted to genocide.
During oral arguments on January 11, South Africa’s best legal minds stated that “Israel’s attack on Gaza extends beyond the fight against Hamas,” but is “embedded in the fabric of Palestinian life in Gaza” and emphasizes the “very essence of our shared humanity.”
South Africa asked the court to issue several orders, including for Israel to “immediately suspend” its Gaza offensive; to stop forced displacement; to enable humanitarian access to thousands of displaced Palestinians; and to preserve evidence.
It asked the ICJ to grant interim measures to stop Israel’s attacks in Gaza while it decides on the merits of the genocide accusations.
South Africa also argued that nothing can ever justify genocide, no matter how great the threat to Israeli security may be.
Israel told the ICJ not to grant South Africa the order it seeks because there is no genocide in Gaza. It said the claims are baseless, and that the country tailored the Gaza genocide story to pre-existing narratives.
The ICJ stated that an order would be issued in a public sitting on a day to be announced later, as hundreds of thousands of people continue to take to the streets throughout the world to condemn the war in Gaza.
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