By Tendai Makaripe
Zimbabwe’s solidarity with Palestine draws strength from the memory of its own liberation struggle.
Deciding what that solidarity requires today is more complicated.
Zimbabwe contributed US$500,000 for Gaza, while local campaigners joined a legal initiative seeking humanitarian access through Rafah.
The government has also defended continued trade with Israel, invoking Zimbabwe’s experience of sanctions to explain its resistance to unilateral economic restrictions.
These choices reveal a debate that extends beyond whether Zimbabwe supports Palestine to how that support can protect lives and advance Palestinian rights.
The question will acquire new urgency in January 2027, when Zimbabwe joins the United Nations Security Council and gains a vote in an institution from which it has sought action.
For Palestinian Ambassador Tamer Almassri, the response must grow stronger.
“Solidarity speeches are good, but more action is needed,” he said.
“As Israel’s aggression increases, the action against it should also increase.”
A shared history, different choices
The Palestinian struggle finds a familiar language in Zimbabwe, where independence followed a protracted fight against colonial rule.
Lazarus Sauti says Almassri consistently uses the language of anti-colonial solidarity, justice, liberation and self-determination to explain the Palestinian cause.
“His message resonates with Zimbabwe’s liberation memory,” Sauti said.
Government statements, media coverage, religious organisations, solidarity groups and universities carry that message to Zimbabweans, he added.
Those connections help explain the persistence of public support, but historical identification does not settle which policies should follow.
Zimbabwe’s experience of sanctions has supplied a different argument.
In an August 11, 2025, interview with NewsDay, Information Secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana said Zimbabwe would continue trading with Israel unless the United Nations decided otherwise.
He cited the suffering sanctions had caused Zimbabwean citizens as a reason for rejecting unilateral restrictions.
Liberation history and opposition to sanctions therefore provide different reference points for policy: support for Palestinian self-determination and resistance to economic isolation.
Zimbabwe has nevertheless provided material assistance.
In April 2024, then-Foreign Affairs Minister Frederick Shava announced a US$500,000 contribution for Gaza, to be transmitted through Zimbabwe’s office in New York for onward delivery to the United Nations.
Almassri identified the intended recipient as the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA.
The contribution was received.
That establishes a tangible act of solidarity beyond declarations, although receipt alone does not show how the money was spent or how many people it assisted.
It also clarifies the disagreement over what should come next.
Humanitarian funding addresses immediate suffering; advocates of stronger pressure want accompanying measures intended to influence the policies and actions producing it.
The question is how Zimbabwe connects those objectives.
Taking a demand to an African institution
Zimbabwean campaigners have also pursued action through a regional human-rights mechanism.
Solidarity advocate Mafa Kwanisai Mafa points to a legal initiative involving the Zimbabwe Palestine Solidarity Council as evidence of work extending beyond public gatherings.
A 43-page complaint gleaned by 263Chat names the council as the third complainant in a coalition seeking intervention from the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The complaint concerns Egypt’s alleged role in restricting access through the Rafah crossing and seeks humanitarian access, medical evacuations and referral to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
CAGE, one of the participating organisations, separately announced the filing and identified the Zimbabwean council among the complainants.
“It is an attempt to use an African regional human-rights mechanism to create institutional pressure,” Mafa said.
The choice of respondent matters.
By directing the complaint against Egypt, the coalition sought scrutiny of an African government’s conduct affecting Palestinians, extending its advocacy beyond condemnation of Israel.
It attached solidarity to a specific demand, access through Rafah, and sought an institutional response.
The published document establishes the Zimbabwean council’s named participation, but does not explain the extent of its contribution or establish that the Commission granted the requested relief.
The allegations remain those of the complainants.
The distinction is consequential: joining a legal initiative is a documented action, while securing a decision or improved access requires further evidence.
Mafa acknowledges the challenge of maintaining pressure after public attention moves elsewhere.
“These events create visibility, but the challenge is what happens on 16 May or 30 November, after the cameras leave,” he said.
His observation directs attention to the less visible work of solidarity: pursuing correspondence, following decisions and sustaining a campaign after a gathering ends.
The economic argument
For researcher Suraya Dadoo, solidarity must also influence decisions about trade, investment and cooperation.
She calls for coordinated African participation in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, including withdrawing investments from companies implicated in violations of Palestinian rights.
“This alignment between ethics and economy must begin at every level – from continental institutions to everyday businesses,” she said.
Her proposals extend to diplomatic, military, academic and cultural relationships, with roles for parliaments, universities, trade unions and the media.
“Boycott alone is insufficient without coordinated, collective action.”
These are demands for African action, rather than evidence that particular Zimbabwean institutions maintain each of the relationships she wants ended.
Economic pressure nevertheless has a documented history within Zimbabwe’s solidarity networks.
Recently, Palestinian activist Saleh Hijazi called for a boycott of Israeli goods and services.
The demand predates Almassri’s latest appeal.
Trade figures illustrate the commercial relationships involved.
Trading Economics, citing United Nations Comtrade data, records Zimbabwe’s goods imports from Israel at US$4.43 million in 2024, including US$3.79 million in electrical and electronic equipment.
Zimbabwe’s exports to Israel were about US$888,300 that year, including US$832,700 in tobacco and manufactured tobacco substitutes.
These figures establish commerce, but do not identify individual buyers, show the end use of equipment or demonstrate involvement in abuses.
They make clear, however, that restrictions would affect existing purchases and sales, with consequences requiring examination for Zimbabwean businesses and their customers as well.
Dadoo’s argument and Mangwana’s explanation expose a substantive disagreement: whether withdrawing economic cooperation would advance accountability, and how the consequences for ordinary people should be weighed.
A nationwide trade restriction is also different from a campaign directed at a particular company or investment.
The Palestinian-led BDS movement’s Guide to Strategic Campaigning for Palestinian Rights recommends selecting targets according to documented involvement, opportunities for coalition-building, media appeal and the prospect of achieving a specific demand.
Academic research helps explain the potential influence of such campaigns.
In A Political Mediation Model of Corporate Response to Social Movement Activism, published in Administrative Science Quarterly in 2008, researcher Brayden G. King examined corporate boycotts reported in major United States newspapers between 1990 and 2005.
His study associated corporate concessions with media attention, especially where a company’s reputation had already weakened.
“Corporate targets of boycotts were more likely to concede when the boycott received a great deal of media attention,” King wrote.
The findings cannot predict a Zimbabwean campaign’s outcome, but they help explain why the visibility Mafa describes can matter when sustained around a clear demand.
They also suggest a more useful measure than the number of solidarity events held: whether the attention generated helps secure the decision a campaign seeks.
A changed corporate policy would be an identifiable result; demonstrating its benefit to Palestinians would remain a further task.
A new diplomatic responsibility
Zimbabwe will soon have another means of acting on its support.
On June 3, 2026, the UN General Assembly elected it to the Security Council for a two-year term beginning on January 1, 2027.
For a government that has invoked the need for UN action when explaining its trade position, the seat creates a particular responsibility: Zimbabwe will participate directly in the council’s decisions.
Almassri has already expressed expectations.
During a July meeting with Women Affairs Minister Monica Mutsvangwa, he welcomed Zimbabwe’s election and said it would represent the interests of countries seeking peace and justice, including Palestinians.
The seat will bring influence, but also limits.
Substantive Security Council decisions require at least nine affirmative votes and can be blocked by a veto from any of its five permanent members.
Zimbabwe’s effectiveness will consequently depend partly on the support it builds among other members, alongside the positions it takes itself.
Its contribution for Gaza demonstrates financial assistance received; the regional complaint demonstrates an attempt to secure institutional intervention.
The forthcoming council term will provide another public record against which solidarity can be assessed: the proposals Zimbabwe supports, the positions it defends and the votes it casts.
From January, Zimbabwe will help shape the UN response it has said it awaits.
