With: The Jerusalem Post, SAPA and Business Day

South Africa will recall its ambassador to Israel following a deadly attack on a vessel attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, Deputy International Relations Minister Ebrahim Ebrahim said today.

However, government had no intention of expelling the Israeli ambassador to South Africa or of cutting diplomatic ties with that community.

"The recall of ambassador Ishmael Coovadia is to show our strongest condemnation of the attack. This recent Israel aggression of attacking the aid flotilla severely impacts on finding a lasting solution to the problems of the region," Ebrahim told journalists in Pretoria today.

South Africa had already added its voice to the increasing international condemnation of Israel's actions and had since summoned the Israeli ambassador to a meeting.

"The SA government also joins the international community in its call for the siege of Gaza to be immediately lifted," said Ebrahim adding that the siege had brought "untold hardships" to the ordinary people of Gaza.

"It has made their lives nightmarish."

Ebrahim said that government welcomed the decision by Egypt to open the Rafa border crossing.

The government yesterday confirmed it had issued a demarche to Israel, the strongest possible diplomatic action short of expulsion of envoys.

Israeli ambassador Dov Segev-Steinberg was on Monday called by Deputy International Relations and Co-operation Minister Sue van der Merwe to convey SA’s strongest condemnation of Israeli forces’ attack on an aid ship .

The department’s spokesman, Mahlatse Mminele, said that SA’s embassy officials yesterday visited “an obviously traumatised” Gadija Davids to give her consular support. Ms Davids, a Cape Town- based radio journalist, was part of the mission to deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

Israeli embassy spokeswoman Ya’akov Finkelstein defended the military action by accusing the peace activists of laying a “premeditated ambush to lynch Israeli soldiers”.

She said that the soldiers acted in self-defence after being “brutally attacked with axes, knives, daggers and other cold weapons prepared in advance by the activists on board.”

“We would have also expected the condemnation of the continuous violation of human rights and international law by Hamas, who is preventing for the fourth year now any visits by the International Red Cross — or any similar impartial body — to the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held in captivity in Gaza,” Ms Finkelstein said.

The attack also prompted the United Nations (UN) Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the issue.