South African President Cyril Ramaphosa stated on Sunday that his country had initially warned that if the war was not handled with caution, it would spread beyond the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“We did warn at a very early stage that unless the challenges and the war between Israel and Palestine in Gaza are handled with care and great wisdom to ensure that there is a cease-fire and humanitarian assistance, the war would soon escalate beyond the borders of Israel.”
The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday, 13 April, in retaliation for Israel’s April 1 attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria. The Israeli strike killed several high-ranking Iranian military officers, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in its Quds Force, an elite foreign reconnaissance and paramilitary arm.
On April 2, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi declared that “cowardly crime will not go unanswered.”
Having failed to destroy the will of the resistance front, [Israel] has put blind assassinations back on its agenda to save itself.
South Africa’s Ramaphosa called on all parties to de-escalate and refrain from further escalation of the conflict.
“We should not be having a regional conflict when we know what the origins of these conflicts are.”
