It was in the mid-1980s. Perez was working as a dentist at a local hospital at the time and saw about 10 victims brought in on trucks serving as makeshift ambulances. One of the victims is etched in her memory.

“I stood in casualty, and I watched people come in with wounds, horrible wounds,” said Perez, now 69. “One man that I remember had blood spurting … so obviously it hit an artery or something out of his back… There was blood all over the show and it was really horrible to look at.”

That day, Perez said, the South African Defence Force (SADF) had meant to strike members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC), which led the struggle to end racist white minority rule in South Africa in 1994. But they hit civilians instead.

Perez, who was an ANC member living in exile after fleeing South Africa in the 1970s due to her political activities, witnessed several SADF bombings and raids across several regional countries at the time.

She says the Lusaka raid was one of many such “mistakes” committed by the apartheid army due to faulty intelligence. For her – and many observers posting on social media – those bombings also have shades of the Israeli military’s attack on Qatar last week, which aimed to hit the leadership of Palestinian group Hamas, among them senior leaders Khalil al-Hayya and Khaled Meshaal.

Instead, it killed al-Hayya’s son, Humam, as well as an aide, three bodyguards, and a Qatari security officer, in a residential suburb in Doha that is also home to embassies, schools and supermarkets.

The attack came at a time when Qatari officials, who are central mediators in talks between Israel and Hamas, had been trying to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 64,000 people since launching its war on the Palestinian enclave two years ago. A United Nations inquiry and leading scholars have declared the killings in Gaza a genocide.

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank has also become increasingly violent, and it has launched attacks on neighbouring countries, citing various threats. Over a 72-hour period this month, Israel struck Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia and Qatar.

This military escalation is reminiscent of the brutal assaults the apartheid regime launched on its neighbours in the decade or so before its demise, analysts note, as it attacked countries including Zambia, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique. Like Israel today, apartheid South Africa justified its incursions as necessary to fight its “terrorist” enemies, a claim which helped both countries win support from the United States.

“Similar to Israel’s recent actions, South Africa’s military action abroad relied on targeted attacks against ANC leadership and safehouses, as well as other activists,” said Sonja Theron, a lecturer in security studies at the University of Pretoria. Apartheid assassinations included shootings and bombings, with civilians often caught in the crossfire.

“The disregard for international law, particularly sovereignty, is also similar,” Theron noted.

Over the last two years, Israel has struck and killed Hamas members in Iran and Lebanon, while its military also bombs sites associated with Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis, groups it says it targets for their support of Hamas. Civilians have also been killed in these attacks.

Similarly, apartheid South Africa’s cross-border attacks aimed to neutralise the MK and other regional liberation organisations which were granted refuge and support by the “front-line states”, a loose coalition of African countries committed to ending apartheid and white minority rule.

An ‘intimate’ connection
Observers note that the parallels between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel and the apartheid regime are far from coincidental.

Apartheid was officially instituted in South Africa in 1948, the same year the state of Israel was born. Both nations used religious justification to promote an ethnonationalist ideology, and both defined themselves by their struggle against a similar enemy, with the apartheid National Party and the Zionist state viewing themselves as an oasis of Western civilisation surrounded by hostile native peoples, researchers say.

In his 2023 book, The Palestine Laboratory, independent journalist Antony Loewenstein writes that after South African Prime Minister John Vorster, a Nazi sympathiser, visited Israel in 1976, the government yearbook carried the following message: “Israel and South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples.”

These affinities resulted in a tight alliance built around defence, with mineral-rich South Africa supplying the capital and Israel the technology.

But Israel also took inspiration from South Africa’s harsh racial segregation policies, in particular the “Bantustan” reserves that forced Black South Africans into “homelands”. These ethnic states served as the blueprint for the 165 “enclaves” Israel established in the occupied West Bank, cutting up Palestinian land, according to Loewenstein.

At the heart of the relationship were weapons, though. Loewenstein writes that South Africa and Israel signed a secret security agreement in April 1975, which laid the foundation of their relationship for two decades.

Loewenstein quotes Alon Liel, a former Israeli ambassador to Pretoria in the 1980s: “After 1976, there was a love affair between the security establishments of the two countries and their armies. We were involved in Angola as consultants to the army. You had Israeli officers there cooperating with the army. The link was very intimate.”

So intimate, in fact, that Israel contravened United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed on apartheid South Africa, while also furthering secret cooperation around building nuclear capabilities. Loewenstein reveals that South Africa reportedly even allowed Israel to test nuclear weapons in the Indian Ocean in 1979, which Israel denies.

Emboldened by its modern weaponry, South Africa launched its series of wars in regional countries in the 1970s and 1980s. In many ways, the swirl of battles in the front-line states back then was a proxy for the broader Cold War standoff.

Civil wars were raging in Angola and Mozambique following their independence from Portugal, with Angolan MPLA government forces backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union fighting against UNITA rebels backed by Pretoria and the US. In Mozambique, the ruling FRELIMO – which was backing liberation movements in the region – fought RENAMO, a group supported by apartheid South Africa and the white minority-led Rhodesia (which became Zimbabwe in 1980 following independence). Meanwhile, Namibia’s South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) was engaged in an independence war with South Africa.

An estimated 1.5 million people died between 1980 and 1988 as a result of deaths from direct conflict, disease, famine and disruptions in health services. Angola and Mozambique, where South Africa had backed rebels to fight against pro-democracy liberators, bore the brunt of the conflict.

The economic cost of the destruction of infrastructure, much of it due to South African aggression, exceeded $60bn over this period.

‘Increasingly unpopular, politically costly’
After decades of apartheid rule and regional tensions, analysts say the goodwill of other liberation movements in Southern Africa towards the ANC was wearing thin, as South Africa’s military and economic prowess exhausted its smaller rivals.

But at the same time, Pretoria was drawing increasing international condemnation as its brutal conflicts abroad and its crackdown on civilian uprisings at home became indefensible, resulting in US sanctions via the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986.

For many observers, this outrage mirrors the growing opposition to Israel, especially as images emerge daily of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli bombs or starved because of food supplies being blocked.

Last Tuesday’s attack on Doha also appeared to deepen international opposition to Israel’s increasingly combative actions. Even traditional Israeli allies joined in the criticism, including Germany and the US.

At the same time, Spain and the European Union announced a series of measures against Israel, including an arms embargo, sanctions on “extremist Israeli ministers” and settlers, and a suspension of bilateral support.

“The United States’ relationship with apartheid South Africa constantly varied considerably depending on the administration, with the policies of Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan differing in meaningful ways. We see similar geopolitical developments constantly changing the playing field when it comes to Israel and Palestine,” said Lazlo Passemiers, a historian based at the University of the Free State in South Africa.

“What can be said with greater certainty is that Israel’s continued reliance on military aggression across the region, and its acts of genocide in Gaza, are making it increasingly unpopular and politically costly for other countries to provide it with open support.”

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has called for a collective response to Israel’s attack on Qatar, warning that “the entire Gulf region is at risk.”

However, experts point out that despite the criticism of Israel’s actions, Netanyahu is unlikely to back down from his military ambitions as long as he enjoys the support of President Donald Trump’s government in Washington.

The key difference between Israel now and South Africa then, according to analysts, is that Israel is of far greater strategic value to the US than South Africa was during the Cold War era, and therefore enjoys almost unlimited support from the world’s superpower.

Furthermore, the US’s decision to impose sanctions on South Africa in the 1980s required bipartisan compromise to overturn President Ronald Reagan’s veto of the bill – a scenario which is unlikely in the sharply divided political climate that currently prevails in the US.

Demand change ‘from within Israel’
In the democratic era, South Africa’s ruling ANC has been fiercely pro-Palestine since its first electoral victory in 1994. By asserting its support for Palestine, President Cyril Ramaphosa, as the current head of the ANC, has continued a long legacy of collaboration.

Shortly after his release from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela made it clear that the ANC had no plans to distance itself from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or the Palestinian cause as a whole, despite the PLO being labelled a “terrorist” organisation by the US and Israel. The ANC has maintained its support for Palestinian independence ever since.

In 2018, South Africa withdrew its ambassador from Israel after the Israeli army killed dozens of peaceful protesters in Gaza, and in 2021, it campaigned against Israel being granted observer status in the African Union.

In December 2023, Ramaphosa’s administration lodged a case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. The country’s parliament has also voted for cutting all ties with Israel, though the government has not followed through on that call.

Despite criticism from activists that it is not doing enough to hold Israel accountable, the South Africans insist the ICJ case is the optimal channel to register their protest.

Meanwhile, as the attack on Qatar leaves the prospect of a peace deal between Israel and Hamas in tatters, analysts say the best hope of bringing the two sides together could lie in the South African example.

The major lesson from the downfall of apartheid was that it relied on both external pressure – including boycotts, sanctions, support for liberation movements, and international opposition to Pretoria – as well as domestic pushback, analysts said.

“Demands for change from within Israel will be necessary to bring about an end to Israel’s oppression and violence,” said Theron.

Meanwhile, for Perez, watching the war unfold in Gaza has triggered memories of her own trauma during the anti-apartheid struggle.

She recalls the constant raids across the border into Botswana to abduct anti-apartheid fighters living there, a letter bomb ripping off the hand of a young comrade in Zambia, and the several times she had to relocate to escape apartheid forces, often crawling along the ground as she made her getaway.

However, she says what’s happening in Gaza is a far cry from her personal ordeal, and it’s something she hopes Israel can be held accountable for.

South Africa must do more, Perez feels, including cutting off all trade relations with Israel and lobbying to have it kicked out of global bodies like the football federation FIFA and the Olympics.

“We need to throttle them economically with sanctions [as was done to apartheid South Africa], and then we will reach that point where Israel will be forced to come and negotiate and be forced to consider a free Palestine,” she said.

“There’s a lot more work to be done.”

The emergency summit of the Arab League and OIC began on Monday, following a closed-door meeting of foreign ministers in Doha, where a draft resolution outlining concrete measures against Israel was prepared.

“It’s time for the international community to abandon dual standards and to hold Israel accountable for all the crimes it has committed,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said before the meeting, adding that the attack must be met with “fierce” and “firm” measures.

The Qatari leader also chided Israel’s continuous derailment of Gaza ceasefire talks, stating: “Israel must know that the continuous genocidal war against the Palestinian people, aiming at forcibly transferring them outside their homeland, cannot succeed, no matter what false justification is provided.”

Israel’s attack on Qatar was part of a broader wave of strikes extending beyond its borders, marking the sixth country Israel had targeted in 72 hours and the seventh since the start of this year.

Who are the 22 members of the Arab League?
Among the attendees are representatives from the Arab League, a group of 22 member nations stretching from North Africa to the Gulf and representing primarily Arab-majority states, with a combined population of nearly 500 million — about six percent of the world’s population.

Officially known as the League of Arab States, the Arab League was established in Cairo on March 22, 1945, by seven founding members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan (now Jordan), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen. Its creation reflected the shared desire of Arab countries emerging from colonial rule to coordinate their political stances, promote regional solidarity and safeguard their sovereignty and independence.

Over the decades, membership grew to 22 states, stretching from North Africa to the Gulf. Egypt was suspended in 1979 after signing a peace treaty with Israel, but its membership was reinstated in 1989. Libya was suspended during the 2011 uprising but readmitted later that year. Syria was suspended in 2011 amid its civil war and reinstated in 2023.

The group accounts for about 3.25 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), with several members ranked among the world’s leading oil producers.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, and Algeria are also part of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and hold some of the largest proven oil reserves. Collectively, Arab League members produce about a quarter of the world’s oil.

All Arab League members are also part of the 57-member OIC.

Who are the 57 members of the OIC?
The OIC, which was formed in 1969 in response to an arson attack on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, brings together 57 countries with significant Muslim populations across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

In September 1969, Muslim leaders met in Rabat, Morocco, to establish a body that would safeguard Islamic holy sites, protect shared political and economic interests, and promote solidarity among Muslim-majority nations on the global stage.

Over time, its membership expanded from 30 to 57 states, reflecting its growing reach. Today, the OIC represents more than 2.1 billion people — about 26 percent of the world’s population and 8 percent of the world’s GDP.

In its early years, the OIC had loose membership rules. Its original charter allowed any Muslim state to join with the approval of two-thirds of existing members, which opened the door for countries without Muslim majorities but with significant Muslim populations. These include Gabon, the Maldives, Mauritania, Uganda, Mozambique, Cameroon, Togo, Benin, the Ivory Coast and Guinea-Bissau.

In the Americas, Guyana and Suriname joined despite having relatively small Muslim communities.

The 2008 charter revision made membership stricter. Now, a country must be a United Nations member (with Palestine as the exception), have a Muslim-majority population, abide by the charter and apply formally. Even then, admission requires consensus among all 57 members — a difficult task.

Albania is the only European state in the OIC.

The organisation has maintained a consistent and forceful stance against Israeli actions, particularly regarding occupation and military offensives in Palestine.

Over the past three years, the OIC has convened several emergency summits and ministerial meetings — most notably in Riyadh, Jeddah and Istanbul – to condemn Israeli attacks on Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and, more recently, strikes involving Iran and Qatar.

The group has repeatedly called for immediate ceasefires, protection of Palestinian civilians and international accountability for what it describes as “Israeli crimes”.

“There are two reasons underlying Israel’s expansionism. The first is to enlarge its territories and establish Greater Israel,” Fidan said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Sunday.

“The second is to keep the countries in the region weak, ineffective, and especially to leave Israel’s neighbouring states divided.”

Fidan made the remarks in Qatar while attending an emergency joint summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League, convened in response to Israeli strikes in Doha that targeted Hamas last week.

“The issue is no longer just the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in our region. It is not only about Israel’s occupation of Palestine or its continuation of genocide in Gaza. It is also about Israel’s pursuit of regional expansionism,” he added.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to join the summit in Doha on Monday.

Ankara considers Qatar a strategic partner and ally, and the attack in Doha has heightened Turkish concerns while reinforcing its view that Israel disregards established norms of international law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared last month to endorse the vision of a Greater Israel.

In an interview with i24 News, host Sharon Gal presented Netanyahu with an amulet depicting what Gal described as “a map of the Promised Land”. When asked if he felt connected to the vision of Greater Israel, Netanyahu responded: “Very much.”

Although the amulet did not appear on screen, the phrase “Greater Israel” is widely understood as an expansionist concept long invoked by ultra-nationalist Israelis to claim parts of Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, in addition to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu also described himself in the interview as being on a “historic and spiritual mission”.

The idea has been publicly invoked by other Israeli officials as well. Last year, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was recorded advocating expansion of Israeli borders to include Damascus.

He suggested that Israel would ultimately extend to cover not only all Palestinian territories but also parts of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

“It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus,” Smotrich said.

The Arab affairs correspondent for i24 News was speaking during a broadcast on Monday, which was later shared by the channel on the social media platform X.

"These are Nukhba men in every way," Yehezkeli said, referring to the slain journalists as members of an elite Hamas military unit.

Yehezkeli, a settler living in the occupied West Bank, said that the journalists had helped to damage Israel's reputation by sharing images of starvation the state has imposed on Palestinians in the besieged territory.

"They continued the legacy of Yahya Sinwar by so-called journalism," he added, in reference to Hamas' slain leader.

"Just think about how much damage these journalists…you call them Nukhba journalists, how much damage they have done to Israel.

"If Israel decides to eliminate the journalists, then it's better late than never."

Hundreds of journalists killed covering genocide
The Israeli military killed Middle East Eye journalists Mohamed Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz in the double-tap strike on Monday.

Israeli forces bombed the fourth floor of Nasser Hospital at around 11am local time (09:00 BST), then moments later fired a second missile deliberately at reporters, bystanders and first responders who had gathered to help recover the dead and wounded.

At least three other journalists were among the 20 Palestinians killed in the attack, including Mariam Dagga, a freelance reporter who worked with several media outlets including the Associated Press; Hussam al-Masri, a photojournalist with the Reuters news agency; and freelance reporter Moaz Abu Taha.

Israel's English language communications have claimed the killings were a "mistake" but the state's Channel 14 news channel has reported that the attack was approved by and coordinated with senior military commanders.

At least 245 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Seven people were killed in the attack on the tent located outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital late on Sunday evening. They include Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa.

Shortly before being killed, al-Sharif, a well-known 28-year-old Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who had reportedly extensively from northern Gaza, wrote on X that Israel had launched intense, concentrated bombardment – also known as “fire belts” – on the eastern and southern parts of Gaza City.

In a final message, written on April 6, to be published in the event of his death, al-Sharif said he “lived the pain in all its details” and “tasted grief and loss repeatedly”.

“Despite that, I never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation, hoping that God would witness those who remained silent, those who accepted our killing, and those who suffocated our very breaths,” he said.

The reporter also expressed sorrow for having had to leave his wife, Bayan, behind, and for not seeing his son, Salah, and daughter, Sham, grow up.

In a statement, Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the killings as “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”.

“This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities,” the network said.

“The order to assassinate Anas Al Sharif, one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.”

Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud, who was just one block away when the strike hit, said reporting on al-Sharif’s death was the hardest thing he has had to do in the past 22 months of war.

In a statement confirming the deliberate killing of al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused the journalist of heading a Hamas cell and “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops”. It also alleged that it had documents providing “unequivocal proof” of his involvement with the Palestinian group.

Muhammed Shehada, an analyst at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, said there was “zero evidence” that al-Sharif took part in any hostilities.

Since Israel launched its war on the enclave in October 2023, it has routinely accused Palestinian journalists in Gaza of being Hamas members as part of what rights groups say is an effort to discredit their reporting of Israeli abuses.

The Israeli military has killed more than 200 reporters and media workers since its bombardment began, including several Al Jazeera journalists and their relatives.

Hospital sources in Gaza reported that at least seven people were killed and more than 15 injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted an apartment in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City.

Later in the night, Israeli forces bombed a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in Al-Shati Refugee Camp, west of Gaza City, killing a woman and wounding others.

This attack came less than 24 hours after another deadly strike on the same camp that left dozens dead and injured, many of them displaced civilians.

In a separate attack at dawn, Palestinian medical sources confirmed that Israeli forces targeted an ambulance vehicle near Hamad Hospital in the northwest of Gaza City, injuring several paramedics.

Elsewhere in the Strip, Israeli aircraft launched heavy air raids and artillery shelling on Deir al-Balah and its surroundings overnight. Flares were also fired into the sky over the city.

The attacks coincide with continued Israeli ground incursions into the southern and eastern areas of Deir al-Balah, part of the military operation launched in the early hours of Monday.

In central Gaza, Israeli drones struck homes in Al-Bureij Refugee Camp early Wednesday, as tanks simultaneously opened heavy fire on areas east of the camp. Israeli warplanes also bombed northern parts of Al-Nuseirat.

According to hospital sources in Gaza, 81 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday alone by Israeli fire, including 31 people who were attempting to collect humanitarian aid.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says Israel will send negotiators to Qatar for ceasefire talks, but that changes to the deal requested by Hamas are “unacceptable”.

At least five more killed in Gaza City as Israeli attacks continue
A source at al-Ahli Arab Hospital tells Al Jazeera that five Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli attack on al-Rimal neighbourhood, in the west of Gaza City.

At least 39 other people have been killed by Israeli attacks on the city just today.

The attacks on Tuesday targeting Tehran, as well as locations Israel branded military bases in western Iran, came as United States President Donald Trump posted an ominous message warning residents of the capital to evacuate.

“Iran can not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump wrote on Monday as he returned to Washington early from a Group of Seven (G7) summit in Canada. “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”