South Africa Calls for International Force to Protect Civilians in Gaza

South Africa has called on the United Nations to "deploy a rapid force to protect civilians in the Palestinian Gaza Strip from further bombing amid Israel's escalation in response to the attack by the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement (Hamas)." The South African Foreign Ministry stated in a statement: "Entire generations of families have been wiped out in Gaza over the past three weeks." The statement highlighted that "25 members of a Palestinian family in Johannesburg were killed in an Israeli airstrike this morning, while members of the family of a senior Palestinian diplomat in South Africa were killed in their residential building the day before." It continued: "The number of non-combatant casualties, especially the number of children killed, demands that the world shows it is serious about global accountability."