Stun grenades and water cannons: police intervened on Sunday, November 12 in Cape Town to calm clashes between pro-Israel demonstrators and other pro-Palestinians demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, the first incident of this type in South Africa. South since October 7.
A prayer for Israel and the Hamas hostages held in Gaza was to be organized at the start of the afternoon in an affluent area of ??Cape Town, on the Atlantic coast, a place for family walks on Sundays. But several hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators were invited to this event, the day after a pro-Palestinian demonstration which brought together thousands of people in the streets of the port and tourist city, according to AFP journalists on site. .
On Sunday, pro-Palestinian demonstrators wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags chased away supporters of prayer for Israel, tore up their signs and occupied the space, AFP noted. The police intervened with a water cannon and threw stun grenades to disperse the demonstrators, then set up a police barrier.
Numerous demonstrations supporting each of the two camps have been organized for weeks in major cities in South Africa where the ruling party, the ANC, has been a fervent defender of the Palestinian cause for decades.
But the country also has the largest Jewish community in sub-Saharan Africa, a section of which has organized vigils and demonstrations to support Israel. Another more discreet fringe of this community, very marked on the left and which actively participated in the fights against apartheid, manifests most often on the side of the Palestinian cause, noted AFP.
