The grandson of Nelson Mandela said life for Palestinians under Israeli occupation is worse than anything black South Africans had gone through during the apartheid period and called on the international community to rush to their aid.

Mandela Mandela, 51, spoke to Reuters yesterday evening, Wednesday, at Johannesburg airport, where he boarded a flight to Tunisia to join the flotilla that aims to deliver humanitarian supplies and food to Gaza despite the Israeli naval blockade.

“Many of us who visited the occupied territories in Palestine came back with a single conclusion: that the Palestinians are living a far worse form of apartheid than we ever experienced,” Mandela said.

“We believe that the world community must continue to support the Palestinians, just as it has stood by our side.”

Israel rejects comparisons between the lives of Palestinians, who for more than half a century have lived under occupation or economic exclusion, and the apartheid era in South Africa, when the black majority was ruled by an oppressive government of the white minority.

Mandela joins a group of 10 South African activists in the Global Sumud flotilla, which includes dozens of ships and hundreds of people from 44 countries, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

The South African African National Congress (ANC) said its mission “echoes our own liberation struggle.”

Mandela stressed that apartheid ended in 1994 only after intense pressure and sanctions from other countries.

“They isolated apartheid South Africa, and eventually it collapsed. We believe that the time has come to do that for the Palestinians,” he said.