Cuba issues harsh condemnation of genocide in Gaza

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 29 (ACN) In the voice of President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba condemned Israel’s ongoing genocidal attack against the Palestinian people, mainly in the Gaza Strip, where more than 7,000 have been killed by bombs and thousands are suffering a humanitarian catastrophe.

In a video statement posted Saturday, the president demanded an end to this policy of scorched earth and extermination, urged the international community to take action against this barbarity, and reiterated Cuba's position in favor of a negotiated, comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the situation in that region of the Middle East.




Below is the full text of the Cuban president’s words:

“Sixty-three years ago, in a historic speech at the United Nations General Assembly, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, said, and I quote: ‘Wars, since the beginning of humanity, have arisen basically for one reason: the desire of some to deprive others of their wealth. Let the philosophy of dispossession disappear, and the philosophy of war will have disappeared! Let colonies disappear, let the exploitation of countries by monopolies disappear, and then humanity will have reached a true stage of progress!’ (End of quote).

This broad and profound idea sums up the reason for the horror that the Palestinian people are living today, confined by a new apartheid to a minimal strip of land. It is the philosophy of dispossession that today is causing a humanitarian catastrophe of horrific proportions.

However, it is not just a strip of land that suffers the impact of Israeli missiles: it is the Palestinian people who are the target of the bombs.

More than 3,000 children and 1,700 women have been killed in the last weeks, while thousands are still trapped under the rubble, waiting for possible rescuers to come and save or bury them.

More than 40 percent of Gaza's homes have been destroyed, and hospitals have been turned into morgues.

Cuba condemns in the strongest terms the bombardments against the population in Gaza and the destruction of hospitals and civilian infrastructure.

We repudiate the murders of innocent people as a result of the current escalation that viciously attacks without distinction of ethnicity, origin, nationality or religious faith.

We also share the pain for the suffering of the Israeli civilian victims of the conflict, but we do not accept a certain selective indignation that pretends to ignore the reality of the genocide currently unleashed against the Palestinians, presenting the Israel as the victim and ignoring 75 years of attacks, occupation, abuses and exclusion.

Nothing can justify what their army is doing in Gaza. Nothing can justify the violations of international humanitarian law they are committing.

Israel is violating each and every UN resolution, and each and every one of its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention, fully confident that the inaction of the Security Council in this regard will ensure its continued shirking of responsibility.

Not even at the present grave juncture has the Security Council been able to call on Israel to stop the ongoing massacre. The United States vetoed in that body a proposal that simply called for humanitarian pauses in the fighting to allow aid access to Gaza and ensure the protection of civilians.

Those who today oppose the cessation of violence in Gaza as a matter of the highest priority will have to take responsibility for the grave consequences this entails.

Small surprise, however, that the United States Government, which has historically been complicit in Zionist barbarism by repeatedly obstructing Security Council action on Palestine and undermining peace and stability in the Middle East with its offensive use of the veto.

A comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the conflict inexorably requires the real exercise of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to build their own independent and sovereign state on the pre-1967 borders and with its capital in East Jerusalem.

There is no effective way to stop once and for all this spiral of violence, save human lives and chart a viable course for peace.

Will the international community allow this unsustainable situation to continue? Or will it remain hostage to an arbitrary exercise, such as the right of veto, which prevents it from acting as it should to stop the crime?
A group of countries, including Cuba, proposed to the United Nations General Assembly a draft resolution, which was finally approved, demanding an immediate ceasefire, the urgent establishment of a mechanism to protect the Palestinian civilian population, rejecting the forced displacement of civilians and advocating the sending of emergency humanitarian aid.

Every moment of inaction and passivity will cost more innocent lives! We must act immediately!

We will continue to contribute as much as possible to legitimate international efforts aimed at putting an end to this barbarism. History will not forgive the indifferent. And we will not be among them.

It is time to put an end to the philosophy of dispossession so that the philosophy of war may die for lack of incentives.”