Naledi Pandor claims to have received intimidating messages arising from the war crimes case against Israel
South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor has accused Israeli intelligence of attempting to intimidate her and her family in response to Pretoria’s genocide case against the Jewish state in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the war in Gaza.
Pandor told reporters on Thursday in the South African city of Cape Town, on the sidelines of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation, that she had requested extra security after receiving threatening messages.
“What I’m more concerned about is my family, because in some of the social media messages, my children are mentioned and so on,” the diplomat said, according to the local weekly Mail & Guardian.
“The Israeli agents, the intelligence services, [this] is how they behave, and they seek to intimidate you, so we must not be intimidated. There is a cause that is under way,” she added.
Pandor’s claims follow similar allegations made by Pretoria last week, claiming that the country is facing destabilization campaigns by international intelligence agencies for accusing the Israeli government of war crimes and demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest at the International Criminal Court (ICC). South African Security Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said her agency has been placed on high alert to prevent foreign interference as Pretoria prepares for national elections later this year.
Israel’s military launched a major offensive in Gaza in response to the attack launched on Israeli villages last October by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which killed more than 1,100 people and took hundreds others hostage. Four months of bombing have killed nearly 28,000 people in the Palestinian territory, the majority of whom were women and children, according to the besieged region’s health ministry. More than a quarter of Gaza’s population is facing famine conditions, according to the latest figures from the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees.
Last week, South Africa claimed that Israel was disregarding a ruling by the ICJ ordering it to prevent civilian deaths while fighting Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, Pandor said Pretoria’s legal team would be working hard to prepare a case for the next round of arguments before the UN’s top court.
“The people of the world and of Palestine didn’t draw back when the Apartheid state was at its worst; they stood with the liberation movement. We cannot back down now. We must be with them,” the Times Live quoted the minister as saying.
