S. African Ambassador Gets Huge Welcome After Expulsion by Trump
CrossFireArabia- March 24, 2025
The South African ambassador, expelled and declared persona non grata by the Trump administration, received a hero’s welcome upon his return to Cape Town on Sunday, with hundreds of supporters waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Free Palestine.”
The crowds at Cape Town International Airport surrounded Ebrahim Rasool and his wife as they emerged in the arrivals terminal in their hometown.
[LIVE NOW
— eNCA (@eNCA) March 23, 2025] "There is nothing that I will say that I will not say elsewhere and so I will stand by my analysis," explains expelled Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool. Tune in to #eNCA #DStv403 #QuestionThinkAct pic.twitter.com/BR4hbGk87B
“A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you,” Rasool told the supporters as he addressed them with a megaphone. “But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth… like this, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity.”
“It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets.”
Rasool also said it was important for South Africa to fix its relationship with the US after President Donald Trump punished the country and accused it of taking an anti-American stance even before the decision to expel Rasool.
Rasool was previously declared persona non grata. His return comes as US President Donald Trump has cut all funding to South Africa, a move widely seen as retaliation for Pretoria’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where it has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
They were the ex-ambassador’s first public comments since he was declared persona non grata, removed his diplomatic immunities and privileges, and gave him until this Friday to leave the US. It is highly unusual for the US to expel a foreign ambassador.
Rasool was declared persona non grata by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a post on X on March 14. Rubio said Rasool was a “race-baiting politician” who hates the US and Trump.
Rubio’s post linked to a story by the conservative Breitbart news site that reported on a talk Rasool gave on a webinar organized by a South African think tank. In his talk, Rasool spoke in academic language of the Trump administration’s crackdowns on diversity and equity programs and immigration and mentioned the possibility of a US where white people soon would no longer be in the majority.
“The supremacist assault on incumbency, we see it in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA movement, the Make America Great Again movement, as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white,” Rasool said in the talk.
On his return home Sunday, he said he stood by those comments, and characterized them as merely alerting intellectuals and political leaders in South Africa that the US and its politics had changed.
“It is not the US of Obama, it is not the US of Clinton, it is a different US and therefore our language must change,” Rasool said. “I would stand by my analysis because we were analyzing a political phenomenon, not a personality, not a nation, and not even a government.”
He also said that South Africa would resist pressure from the US — and anyone else — to drop its case at the ICJ accusing Israel of genocide. The Trump administration has cited that case against US ally Israel as one of the reasons it alleges South Africa is anti-American.
South Africa filed a case at the ICJ in December 2023, which accuses Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention in its war on the Gaza Strip. More than 10 countries have since joined South Africa in the genocide case.
Some of the supporters welcoming Rasool, who is Muslim, waved Palestinian flags and chanted “free Palestine.”
“As we stand here, the bombing (in Gaza) has continued and the shooting has continued, and if South Africa was not in the (International Court of Justice), Israel would not be exposed, and the Palestinians would have no hope,” Rasool said.
“We cannot sacrifice the Palestinians… but we will also not give up with our relationship with the United States. We must fight for it, but we must keep our dignity,” according to the Quds News Network.
Saudis Say No to Israeli Displacement Agency
- CrossFireArabia
- March 24, 2025
Saudi Arabia on Monday condemned Israel’s announcement of establishing an agency aimed at displacing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
In a statement, the Saudi Foreign Ministry also denounced “the approval of the separation of 13 illegal settler neighborhoods in the West Bank, paving the way for their legitimization as colonial settlements.”
Saudi Arabia reiterated its “unwavering rejection of Israel’s continuous violations of international law and international humanitarian law.”
The Kingdom further stressed that “lasting and just peace cannot be achieved without the Palestinian people obtaining their legitimate rights in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved the formation of a directorate to encourage what it called the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement late Saturday that the new directorate will work to “prepare for and enable safe and controlled passage of Gaza residents for their voluntary departure to third countries.”
Katz’s office said the new administration will be responsible for establishing movement routes, checking pedestrians at designated crossings in Gaza, and coordinating the provision of infrastructure that will enable passage by land, sea, and air to the destination countries.
Trump has repeatedly called to “take over” Gaza and resettle its population to develop it into a tourist destination. His plan was rejected by the Arab world and many other nations, who say it amounts to ethnic cleansing according to Anadolu.
The Israeli army launched a surprise aerial campaign on the Gaza Strip on March 18, killing at least 730 people and injuring nearly 1,200 others despite a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.
Over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and more than 113,000 injured in a brutal Israeli military onslaught on Gaza since October 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Gaza Deaths Top 50,000 as Israeli Army Continues Bloody Onslaught
- CrossFireArabia
- March 24, 2025
At least 61 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, raising the death toll since October 2023 to 50,082, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
A ministry statement said that the toll included four bodies retrieved from the rubble in the last 24 hours.
The ministry said 134 more injured people were transferred to hospitals, taking the number of injuries to 113,408 in the Israeli onslaught.
“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
The Israeli army launched a surprise aerial campaign on the Gaza Strip on March 18, killing at least 730 people and injuring nearly 1,200 others despite a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Israel Kills Two Journalists in Gaza Spiking their Number to 208
- CrossFireArabia
- March 24, 2025
Israeli kills two more Palestinian journalists in separate Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, Monday. This raises the overall death toll of male and female journalists and media workers to 208 since 7 October 2023 when the Israeli war started on the enclave soon after.
The Gaza government media office stated that Hossam Shabat, a reporter for the Qatari-based Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed in an Israeli strike in northern Gaza.
Mohammed Mansour, a reporter for Palestine Today TV, was also killed in another airstrike that struck his apartment in the southern city of Khan Younis. His wife and child were also killed in the attack, the media office confirmed in a statement.
— Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) March 24, 2025
BREAKING: The Israeli army kills journalist Mohammad Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today, in an attack targeting a house in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/PR6ETQpNXV
The media office held Israel, the US, and their allies, including the UK, Germany, and France, fully responsible for what it described as “a brutal crime,” according to Anadolu.
It appealed to the international community and relevant institutions to exert meaningful pressure to stop what it called an “ongoing genocide” and to ensure protection for journalists and media workers.
The Israeli army launched a surprise aerial campaign on the Gaza Strip on 18 March, killing at least 730 people and injuring nearly 1,200 others despite a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and more than 113,200 injured in a brutal Israeli military onslaught on Gaza since October 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
