The student movement, which organised the successful pro-Palestinian protest marches in Westville, will focus on raising money, emergency equipment and essential goods for the economically landlocked Gaza City under Israeli control.
”The protest has given rise to a bigger cause and through our social media and website inter-connectivity we are going to establish a movement to achieve its aim of raising the Palestine issue to the top of our campaigns,’’ said spokeswoman Raeesa Joosab Osman. Rallying the residents of Westville and its inner-city suburbs was a clarion call that medical sciences student Humaira Ahmed did not wish to bypass. Over 11 days she had viewed the horrific footages splashed across global TV networks of the tit-for-tat air missiles bombing between Tel Aviv and the Gaza Strip. As the local protests got into top gear, both Israel and Hamas claimed victories in the 11-day conflict, the new Biden-Harris Administration are set to ramp up the diplomatic efforts with the support of Egypt to hammer out a peace accord. As the intraborder internecine war escalated to fever pitch levels between the powerful Israeli armed forces – the Jewish state heavily protected by the state-of-the-art anti-missile Iron Dome systems and air-missiles firepower – and the
Hamas insurgents firing 4 000 rockets from its bases in Gaza City enclave to southern Israeli towns and cities, UKZN student Ahmed rallied the troops across Westville and surrounding suburbs. She mobilised mainly students and then planned and executed one of the most successful protests in a long time. Donning the trademark “Kuffiyah’’ – a black-and-white embroidered scarf and head-band first popularized by the enigmatic leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), Chairman Yasser Arafat – the young Turks of this new struggle draped their bodies with black-and-white and scarlet red-and-white scarves, as they waved the green, black and white Palestinian flags. Young men, women and children caught the attention of passers-by as they waved posters and placards about a conflict that claimed the lives of 250 men, women and children and displaced 10 000 from Gaza and 13 Israelis on the other side. While many residents and shoppers hooted their horns in support, others – conservative, old-school citizens – appeared annoyed and irritated by the traffic snarl-ups and gridlocks caused by the fairly boisterous showcasing of a bloody conflict taking place 7 000 kilometres away.
At peak-time on Friday – between 3-6pm – hundreds of cars are parked on a long single lane, waiting to pick up learners from Westville Girls’ High School; the Metro police traffic marshal is doing his dancing antics to get the traffic volumes flowing smoothly.In the heart of the action, the Youth for Palestine have now hit strategic intersections of a busy CBD – almost bringing the town to a standstill. Amidst honking of hooters, sloganeering, singing, chanting and happily waving flags and placards, hundreds of Muslim students and sympathisers made up the images of the colourful picket lines at curbsides, traffic intersections, sidewalks, parking lots and slipways. “It was our own contribution to a bigger cause of showing solid support for the oppressed people of Palestine – this conflict has gone on for too long and it is time for direct action. We are overwhelmed by the support we have received from particularly young people across the suburbs,’’ said Ahmed. “Protests and prayers are our most powerful weapon. So the more awareness we raise the more people we will have praying for a free and independent Palestine controlled by an apartheid state.’’
Once the organisers – mainly female students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Regent, Varsity College and other campuses – had rallied its supporters via social media platforms, groups were deployed across Westville up to bordering Berea West, Westville North and Reservoir Hills. In one fell swoop the campaign reached thousands of passers-by, motorists, onlookers and learners, from the Rockdale Avenue bridge overlooking the King Cetshwayo Highway (M13), Attercliffe Road within the Westville pool and library complex, Jan Hofmeyr intersections near Westville Boys’ High and the 100-year mosque, the busy Buckingham Terrace and Westville Mall intersection, to the Church/Westville roads intersections opposite the KFC and up to Roger Sishi Road, leading to Westville North’s supermarkets. CEASEFIRE: Before the conflict could reach week two, world pressure – brokered by Egypt, USA, Qatar – including SA’s strongest condemnation – compelled Israel’s hawkish PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas militants to silence the guns and rockets and agree to a ceasefire while the United Nations, the White House and the Arab League figure out a lasting peace deal within the two-state accord and agreement between the belligerent brigades across the borders. WAR CRIMES: Since the helter-skelter bombings in the fourth war, in which civilian casualties, displacements and home-land grabs soared, law experts are lobbying the International Court of Justice to bring Israel and Hamas to face war crimes charges at The Hague in the Netherlands.
