CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Several hundred people marched through central Cape Town Saturday waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans in a pro-Gaza rally to mark the first anniversary of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

With placards accusing Israel of genocide and racism, the marchers -- many of them wearing the keffiyeh scarf that symbolizes the Palestinian struggle against Israel -- walked to parliament in a protest organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

"Israel is a racist state" and "We are all Palestinian", chanted some of the marchers. Others held up placards stating: "We are all Hamas" or "Zionism is racism".

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Some marchers said they agreed with the South African case before the International Court of Justice that alleges the Israeli military operation in Gaza, launched in response to the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants, amounts to "genocide".

"I am appalled at Israel and the genocide and the attack on innocent people, children... and now moving on into Lebanon," Linelle Arendse told the News24 channel.

Many South Africans compare Israel's stance towards Palestinians with the racially oppressive system of apartheid that imposed white-minority rule on South Africa until the first all-race election in 1994.

"I have been through the apartheid struggle so I know the pain of the Palestinians and Lebanese," Shafiek Barnes told News24. "I am here because I am Muslim and I feel the pain that they are going through."

The organizers of the march handed to parliament a memorandum demanding the government implement the UN's 1973 Apartheid Convention which declares apartheid systems a crime and allows for action against them, such as boycotts.

Also called the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, it was signed by the South African government in May 2024.

Pro-Gaza marches were also due Saturday in the cities of Johannesburg and Durban and around the world ahead of the anniversary of the October 7 attack.

© Agence France-Presse