AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The Muslim community in Cape Town, South Africa held a gathering to voice support for the Palestinian people.
They gathered at the Al Quds mosque of the city in solidarity with Palestinians on Sunday.
South Africa's liberation movement "was also forced... to take up arms to have an impact," said Shaykh Shahid Esau, a former member of the South African parliament.
During the apartheid era, “the world community was called on to have sanctions against South Africa and we find the very same Western countries that supported South Africa during the apartheid regime...they are the very same people who are now supporting Israel against the Palestinian people,” he added.
The Al Quds Foundation (SA) also hosted a mass Khatam al Quran (reading the entire Quran) for the liberation of the oppressed Palestinians at the mosque.
The Muslim Judicial Council’s (MJC) Sheikh Ebrahim Gabriels and Moulana Abdul Khaliq Allie addressed the crowd on the objective of the gathering.
It comes as the Israeli regime pounded the besieged Gaza Strip for a second night in a row after formally declaring war against the Palestinian Hamas group. Its military says some 100,000 reserve troops have amassed near Gaza.
Fierce fighting is continuing between the Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces in at least three areas in southern parts of the occupied territories, including a kibbutz in Karmia and in the cities of Ashkelon and Sderot.
The latest death toll stands at 413 Palestinians, according to health officials, and more than 700 Israelis, according to media reports.
Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said they are holding more than 130 people captive inside Gaza.
Hamas’s surprise operation, the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, came after Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in recent days and a record number of Palestinians were killed by Israel in recent months.
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