A combative meeting to condemn Israel’s criminal aggression against the Gaza Strip was celebrated on January 14 at the “Frank Pais” Orthopedics Teaching Complex, presided by Jorge Risquet Valdés, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.

Professor Rodrigo Álvarez Cambra, president of the Cuban-Arab Friendship Association made a brief recount of the historical roots of the struggle of the Palestinian people, the stratagems of western powers to artificially create a Jewish State, reaffirmed the militant solidarity of the Cuban people with the just cause of the Palestinian people and denounced the massacre being committed by Zionist forces in the Gaza Strip with the consent of the United States of America and its European allies and other countries’ silent complicity.

Alfonso Fraga, Secretary General of the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAAL) pointed out that “the international community knows perfectly well that this new criminal action of Israel has the true purpose of exterminating every form of administration in the Gaza Strip and dividing the Palestinian forces as part of their plans of systematic extinction of the Palestinians”. He added that OSPAAAL “strongly condemns the genocidal attacks and expresses its profound indignation for this new Zionist massacre against the Palestinian people”. He declared his convincement that “only a rapid and effective international response might stop this militaristic escalade of Israel, whose impunity derives from the total support offered by the government of the United States”.

The President of the Arab Union of Cuba, Alfredo Deriche; Armando Pérez Suárez, official of the Cuban Movement for Peace and the Sovereignty of the Peoples, the Palestinian ambassador in Cuba; and a representative of the Union of Palestinian Students in Cuba also took the floor to condemn the Zionist massacre.