President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned the escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict “by those arming either of the warring parties” and called on countries to cease the supply of weapons to either side, saying it “undermines the promise of peace”.

President Cyril Ramaphosa with other state leaders at the Cairo Summit for Peace on 21 October 2023. (Photo: GCIS)

Ramaphosa, along with international leaders, foreign ministers and diplomats from other nations, on Saturday attended the Cairo Summit for Peace in Egypt, which aimed to de-escalate the violence between Israel and Hamas. Representatives from countries including the UK, Jordan, France, Germany, Russia and the US attended the one-day meeting, along with officials from the United Nations and European Union.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Middle East Crisis News Hub 

In a statement on Sunday afternoon, Ramaphosa called for more action from the international community to revive the peace process between Israel and Palestine.

“Influential countries like the United States of America have a duty and a responsibility to support processes that will deliver a long-lasting and durable peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The international community cannot afford to squander the opportunity that has been presented by the current conflict to decisively push for a two-state solution,” he said. 

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid arrive after crossing from Egypt to the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Gaza, on 21 October 2023. (Photo: Ahmad Salem / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In his address to the summit on Saturday, Ramaphosa reiterated calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities, the release of hostages, the lifting of Israel’s siege on Gaza, the opening of humanitarian corridors and the urgent provision of aid to the people of Gaza on the scale required.  

“The fighting must end. Israel must stop its siege and shelling of Gaza. Hamas must stop launching rockets into Israel. Hostages must be returned. We must discourage any action that fuels this conflict and threatens to engulf the entire region. Humanitarian corridors must be opened to alleviate human suffering,” he said. 

Ramaphosa also called for the UN to lead the negotiation process to resolve the conflict.

The peace talks in Cairo took place as the first convoy of 20 aid trucks was allowed to enter the Gaza Strip via the Rafah border crossing from Egypt on Saturday, after days of high-level negotiations involving the US, Israel, Egypt and the UN.

Young Palestinians stand on a heart-shaped installation next to the rubble of a building after an Israeli air strike on Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 22 October 2023. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Haitham Imad)

Israel had insisted nothing would enter Gaza until Hamas released all the hostages from its attack on 7 October. Hamas freed its first hostages on Friday — a US woman and her daughter, Reuters reported.

Israel has demanded that any aid entering Gaza be inspected for weapons and be kept out of Hamas’s hands. The US-brokered deal allowed the passage of 20 trucks with food, water and medical supplies from the UN and the Egyptian Red Crescent on Saturday. It has been reported that negotiations for future shipments were ongoing, but it was unclear at what scale more aid would be allowed in.

Reports that Israel had intensified bombing in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, came as a second convoy of about 19 trucks loaded with medical and food supplies entered the Rafah crossing.

Khan Yunis camp residents queue to fill containers from a water tanker in southern Gaza City, 22 October 2023. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Haitham Imad)

Israel remains poised for a ground assault on Gaza after two weeks of airstrikes, following the 7 October attack by Hamas on southern Israel in which more than 1,400 people were reportedly killed and about 200 hostages taken. Al Jazeera reported on Sunday that 4,651 Palestinians had been killed and 14,245 wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October. A further 90 had been killed and 1,400 wounded in the occupied West Bank.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘Revenge is not a strategy’ — experts warn of dire consequences if Israel launches ground invasion of Gaza

‘A drop in the ocean’

Aid organisations welcomed the opening of the Rafah crossing on Saturday, but warned that much more aid is needed to begin addressing the deepening humanitarian crisis.

A 20-truck convoy of the Egyptian Red Crescent is moving today into Gaza.

The people of Gaza need a commitment for much more – a continuous delivery of aid at the scale that is needed.

We are working nonstop with all relevant parties to make it happen.

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) October 21, 2023

Gift of the Givers founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman on Sunday told Daily Maverick that the trickle of aid carried into Gaza by the 20 trucks was insufficient. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: Gift of the Givers on the ground providing urgent assistance to civilians in Gaza 

“All I know is that they need a minimum of 500 trucks a day — 20 trucks is a drop in the ocean, and even 500 is too little to look after 2.3 million people,” he said.

Five UN agencies, including the World Health Organization and the World Food Programme, called for a “humanitarian ceasefire, along with immediate, unrestricted humanitarian access throughout Gaza” in a statement late on Saturday. 

A truck carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip crosses the Rafah border gate, in Rafah, Egypt, 22 October 2023. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Khaled Elfiqi)

The convoy of 20 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies provided an “urgently needed lifeline to some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, who have been cut off from water, food, medicine, fuel and other essentials. 

“But it is only a small beginning and far from enough,” they said.  

“Flows of humanitarian aid must be at scale and sustained, and allow all Gazans to preserve their dignity.” 

The 365km2 Gaza Strip is home to about 2.3 million people, making it one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Nearly one-third of Gaza’s population was food insecure before this recent conflict, but two weeks of bombardment had put more than 1.6 million people “in critical need of humanitarian aid”, the UN agencies said.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘The basic necessities of human life are cut off’ — Gaza residents face gigantic humanitarian crisis

“With so much civilian infrastructure in Gaza damaged or destroyed in nearly two weeks of constant bombings, including shelters, health facilities, water, sanitation and electrical systems, time is running out before mortality rates could skyrocket due to disease outbreaks and lack of healthcare capacity.  

“Hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties. Civilians face mounting challenges in accessing essential food supplies. Health facilities no longer have fuel and are running on small amounts they have secured locally. These are expected to run out in the next day or so.  

A man looks on as an excavator removes the rubble of a residential building levelled by an Israeli air strike on Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 22 October 2023. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Haitham Imad)

“Gaza was a desperate humanitarian situation before the most recent hostilities. It is now catastrophic. The world must do more.” 

Gift of the Givers has had a presence in Gaza since 2014. Sooliman said his team inside Gaza was distributing medical supplies, food and water to people in the enclave. Read Daily Maverick reporter Takudzwa Pongweni’s interview with the project manager at the organisation’s Palestine office here.  

Sooliman said he feared for the safety of his team in Gaza.

The organisation wanted to send teams and supplies from South Africa to Gaza, but this required special arrangements with the Egyptian government. 

Sooliman has met the Egyptian ambassador to South Africa, Ahmed Elfadly, and officials from South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation to discuss bringing aid and medical teams from South Africa to Gaza.  

“We’re starting to prepare the paperwork — we want to take in medical teams and supplies from South Africa; and in Egypt itself, we want to buy food, medicines and fuel, but right now there’s hundreds of trucks at El Arish and waiting outside Rafah — there’s no point adding to that confusion,” he said.  

He said Gift of the Givers was on standby, but “will move instantly if [it] gets permission”.

Gift of the Givers is accepting donations for its work in Gaza. Online donations can be made here, while the banking details are here. DM