The latest being a South African Council of Churches (SACC) delegation, which has just returned from Israel-Palestine.
Over the last decade, around 20 SA political activists, and volunteers from various religious organisations, have been refused entry to Israel, bodily searched and held in detention for hours before being deported – with little to no assistance from the SA Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Among those to have been deported are internationally-renowned figures Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and Justice Richard Goldstein, Head of the United Nations fact-finding mission, who was investigating violations of international human rights law in the Palestinian territories in connection with the Gaza War of 2008-2009.
In recent months an increasing number of Christian volunteers with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Israel/Palestine (EAPPI) have been denied entry into Israel, including Siphesihle Dlungwane.
The SACC delegation, which returned last week from a visit to Israel-Palestine released a particularly harsh statement.
“Based on the information before us, it is clear that Israel is structured in a way that fits and even surpasses the description of an apartheid state, which robs Palestinians of their citizenship and treats them in a discriminatory way,” said the SACC.
“With our experience of apartheid that the whole world recognised and condemned as a crime against humanity, we see the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel as worse than apartheid.
“We are concerned that the world that condemned apartheid has closed its eyes to the pain and suffering of Palestinians in the occupied areas.”
The delegation of nine church leaders, led by SACC President Bishop Zipho Siwa, visited Tel Aviv and Nazareth in Israel, and Hebron, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem in Palestine which has been occupied since 1967.