Israeli occupation worse than apartheid, says Mandela’s grandson

 The lives of Palestinians are worse than anything black South Africans experienced under apartheid, Nelson Mandela’s grandson has said.

Mandla Mandela is joining activists including Greta Thunberg on the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza, which aims to break an Israeli naval blockade of the coastal strip.

Dozens of boats are setting sail for the enclave, where famine was declared in Gaza City late last month by the international body responsible for monitoring world hunger.

Mr Mandela told Reuters: “Many of us that have visited the occupied territories in Palestine have only come back with one conclusion – that the Palestinians are experiencing a far worse form of apartheid than we ever experienced.

“We believe that the global community has to continue supporting the Palestinians, just as they stood side by side with us.”

Israel strongly rejects comparisons between the lives of Palestinians and the apartheid era in South Africa. It denies there is a famine in Gaza and says its tight restriction of humanitarian supplies and other goods into the country is to stop weapons reaching Hamas.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has long said its own struggle against apartheid was echoed by the campaign for a Palestinian state.

Nelson Mandela said in 1997, three years after he was elected South Africa’s president, said: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

His grandson said that apartheid ended in 1994 after intense pressure and sanctions from other nations, adding: “They isolated apartheid South Africa and finally collapsed it. We believe that the time has come for that to be done for the Palestinians.”

In 2023, South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in a move that infuriated Washington.

Plan to detain activists 

Ms Thunberg joined another flotilla attempting to break the blockade three months ago. Israeli forces intercepted it, and she was later deported from Israel.

In the latest flotilla, vessels set sail from Barcelona earlier this week having been delayed by bad weather. On Thursday, they will meet other vessels sailing from Tunisia, where Mr Mandela is due to embark.

At the weekend, it emerged Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-Right national security minister, was planning to present Benjamin Netanyahu with a plan to detain the activists in “terrorist-level” conditions should the flotilla reach Gaza again.