\n South Africa will Tuesday host a virtual summit of the BRICS group of nations, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, to discuss the Israel-Hamas war, Pretoria and Moscow said Monday.\n<\/p>\n
\n The BRICS -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- are a group of major emerging economies seeking to reshape the US and Western-led global order.\n<\/p>\n
\n Tuesday's \"Extraordinary Joint Meeting on the Middle East Situation in Gaza\" will be hosted by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the hope of drawing up a common response to the more than six-week conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n Leaders from Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates -- who are all due to join the BRICS group in January 2024 -- will attend the meeting.\n<\/p>\n
\n UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will also participate, the South African presidency said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n
\n It added that all five BRICS heads of state will join the virtual summit, after which a joint statement with particular reference to Gaza is expected.\n<\/p>\n
\n Fighting is raging in Gaza after a shock Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, with around 240 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.\n<\/p>\n
\n In Gaza, around 13,300 people, more than 5,500 of them children, have been killed in the retaliatory air and ground offensive, officials in the Hamas-run territory have said.\n<\/p>\n
\n South Africa has long been a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, with the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party often linking it to its own struggle against apartheid.\n<\/p>\n
\n The ANC said last Thursday that it would support a parliamentary motion to suspend diplomatic relations with Israel until it agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza, decrying the \"genocidal actions of the Israeli regime\".\n<\/p>\n
\n On Friday, South Africa joined four other nations in calling for an International Criminal Court investigation into the Israel-Hamas war.\n<\/p>\n
\n China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinians and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n Beijing has been calling for an immediate ceasefire since the start of the war last month.\n<\/p>\n
\n Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of stoking tensions in the Middle East, and criticised Israel for its conduct in the conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n Putin skipped the last BRICS annual summit in Johannesburg as he is the target of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant -- a provision that South Africa as an ICC member would be expected to implement if he were to set foot in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa will Tuesday host a virtual summit of the BRICS group of nations, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, to discuss the Israel-Hamas war, Pretoria and Moscow said Monday. The BRICS -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- are a group of major emerging economies seeking to reshape the US and Western-led global […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-125044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n