As Israel struck Qatar, South Africans saw echo of last decade of apartheid

"Gonda Perez remembers the day South Africa's apartheid regime bombed a refugee camp in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, during an air raid. 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."

"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."

Gonda Perez, an ANC exile and former dentist, witnessed South African Defence Force bombings in the mid-1980s that struck a Zambian refugee camp in Lusaka and wounded civilians. She recalls seeing about 10 victims arrive on makeshift ambulances and a man with arterial bleeding. The SADF intended to target Umkhonto we Sizwe fighters but hit civilians, which she attributes to faulty intelligence. Perez said the SADF carried out raids across Zambia, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique. Many observers have compared those apartheid-era cross-border attacks to a recent Israeli strike on Doha that killed civilians, including a militant leader's son, complicating mediation efforts.

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