South Africans head to Gaza as part of Global Sumud Flotilla
A group of South Africans are sleeping in Tunisia on Monday night as they prepare for their journey across the Mediterranean in an attempt to reach Gaza with humanitarian aid.
This comes as the United Nations' Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Organisation labelled the conditions in Gaza as a famine.
Israel has vehemently disputed these findings, claiming the report is based on cherry-picked data.
Jacaranda FM News spoke to Jared Sacks, a post-graduate fellow at the University of Johannesburg and member of Jews for a Free Palestine, on Monday afternoon.
He said Israel is violating international law by enforcing a blockade around Gaza, and that the country is illegally occupying the Palestinian territory.
Sacks said they will attempt to break the blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.
"We've been protesting, many of us have been protesting for the past two years, have been writing letters, writing op-eds, doing whatever we can to try and pressure governments to stop Israel, stop allowing Israel to do what it's been doing, and the success of that has been limited," said Sacks.
"We, you know, have been able to put pressure on Israel, but we haven't been able to stop the war. So, for many of us, I think we decided we need to do something else. We need to take more drastic action to make sure that the people of Gaza can be fed, because right now Israel is blockading Gaza and not allowing almost any food in. People and children there are starving."
"So, we decided, you know, how about we bring humanitarian aid straight to Gaza?"
The Israeli government has barred the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from delivering aid in the Gaza strip and has set up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to provide aid.
The GHF has been denounced by United Nations experts, calling it an "utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in a serious breach of international law."
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights called for the GHF to be immediately dismantled.
"Israeli forces and foreign military contractors continue to open indiscriminate fire on people seeking aid at so-called ‘distribution sites’ operated by GHF, since it was set up to take-over functions previously performed by United Nations agencies, most notably UNRWA, the UN’s aid agency for Palestinian refugees,” it said.
"Nearly 1,400 people have been killed and more than 4,000 injured while seeking food. At least 859 people have been killed around GHF sites since the beginning of GHF’s operations in late May 2025. The sites are especially difficult to access to the most vulnerable conditions, such as women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons."
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