The continued slaughter of Palestinians by Israel continues to prick the conscience of the world. Thousands of women and children have been killed by the Israeli army despite condemnation from world leaders.

The Africa Union finally moved out of its usual timidity and called for a two-State solution to deadly and enduring conflict. 

While some world powers have condemned Hamas killings, they have rationalised the Israeli killings in Gaza which has claimed more lives, as an act of self-defence.

We cannot recount the history and complexities of the 72-year-old conflict. But it is largely resolves around the existential threat to the State of Israel and self-determination for the Palestinians who feel persecuted on their own land.

We encourage the deployment of the wisdom of the revered South African freedom hero Nelson Mandela and fellow anti-apartheid crusader Desmond Tutu. Mandela’s Africa National Congress has made it clear that it considers Israeli which occupies huge territories of the Arab land as an “apartheid state” and that PLO was a liberation movement.

He said while Israeli had a right to exist as a state legally with secure borders, it has no rights to the territories they conquered from the Arab world such as the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the West Bank.

And in 2002 Archbishop Tutu said: “I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.”

The Africa Union has criticized Israel’s military attacks on Gaza and called for stronger efforts for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

“What happened there is to be condemned, what was carried out from Gaza is to be condemned, but the answer was not proportionate,” Comoros President Azali Assoumani, the chair of the union said.

“We condemn all measures, all actions, everything that harms children, and that then leads to extremism when they experience something like that,” he added.

 “We must all sit down at one table and affirm that people must live together in peace, and so everyone wins from it,” he said.

Let reason prevail in Israeli-Hamas war.