The Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh
The assassination this morning of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Palestinian movement Hamas, is a brazen demonstration by Apartheid Israel of its murderous intent, and eagerness to spark ever more incendiary regional and global conflict.
Ismail Haniyeh's murder comes atop the trail of death and destruction Israel is inflicting on Gaza, which according to the respected medical journal, The Lancet, could plausibly have led to the deaths of 186 000 Palestinians, or 7.9% of the population of the Gaza Strip.
The United Ulama Council of South Africa condemns this assassination as a dangerous escalation and a flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law. Israel is operating under the law of the jungle and has become a "runaway killing machine", unrestrained by all norms of human decency.
It should be noted that such behaviour by Israel has been egged on by the active connivance of parties in the Western and Arab world. whose silence, or shameless applause in the face of Israeli criminality have created an enabling environment for the Zionist state, to embark on yet more outlandish provocations. These parties are complicit in the crimes of Israel and share the burden of innocent blood.
If Israel thinks this murder can crush the Palestinian spirit of resistance and the march towards attainment of legitimate aspirations, it has manifestly miscalculated. Israel has declared victory a number of times in the past 76 years; the list of Palestinian leaders it has killed is indeed long. Amongst other extrajudicial murders of Palestinian leaders, we vividly remember the 2004 assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas" wheelchair-bound founding leader, targeted in helicopter-fired a missile, as he was being wheeled from Fajr prayer, in Gaza. Such killings have achieved nothing for the occupier, except to bring on yet another, fresh wave of resistance against the illegal occupation.
The martyrs of Palestine have attained for themselves, their community and their mission, a life which transcends their deaths:
"And say not of those slain in Allah's way. "They are dead"; Nay, they are alive but you perceive it not." (al-Baqarah 2:154)
The sacrifices of Ismail Haniyeh will be memorisalised amongst the struggles of revolutionaries such as Steve Biko, Imam Abdullah Haron and Solomon Mahlangu, who made the ultimate sacrifice towards the attainment of freedom for their peoples.
UUCSA endorses the call made by the now-martyred leader prior, for Saturday 3rd August, to be designated an International Day of Action for Gaza and Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.
The community is urged to intensify all spiritual, political and humanitarian efforts, in memory of the martyrs, to make 3 August "a pivotal, significant, and impactful day" across the globe, to end the genocide in Gaza and secure freedom for Palestine.