As the Israeli state intensifies its bombing of the Gaza Strip, including targeting hospitals and civilians fleeing its genocidal attack, Cubans reaffirmed their solidarity with the Palestinian people and pledged to redouble their efforts “in condemning the crimes that Israel continues to commit against a nation defending its legitimate rights”.
The Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and the Cuban-Arab Friendship Association (AACA) released a joint statement that said: “For 75 years, the Palestinian people have faced, in an unequal struggle, the growing hostility of the Israeli state, which has sought to displace them from their own territory, disregarding United Nations resolutions and violating basic human rights.”
“We believe that it is the duty of the United Nations Security Council to take appropriate measures to halt the suffering and disaster in Palestine.
“It is the duty of all nations to condemn the critical situation facing this people.
“We extend our solidarity and unconditional support to our Palestinian brothers and sisters, whose cause we defend as our own.”
The statement “embraced” the Cuban foreign ministry’s stance in seeking “a comprehensive, just, and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the creation of two states, enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination” and a sovereign Palestinian state “within the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez released a statement on X (formerly Twitter) on October 18, condemning "in the strongest terms" Israel's bombing of the Al Ahi hospital in Gaza, which killed and injured hundreds of civilians, saying: "We demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to these flagrant violations of international humanitarian law."
[Read the full ICAP statement here.]