HAVANA, June 23 (NNN-AFRICANEWS) — Cuba announced its decision to participate in South Africa’s legal action at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. The Cuban Foreign Ministry released a statement on Friday confirming their involvement in the case.
The move is aimed primarily at “stopping the atrocities against the Palestinian people as a result of Israel’s disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force,” said the statement.
On December 29, 2023, South Africa initiated legal proceedings against Israel at the ICJ, citing violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention in relation to Palestinians in Gaza. Following South Africa’s lead, other countries such as Chile and Spain have also joined the lawsuit against Israel.
A media report points out that the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a communiqué which gives an account of the decision that confirms its involvement in the case.
It adds that the measure seeks above all to “stop the atrocities against the Palestinian people as a result of the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force”.
In 1973, Cuba’s historic leader, Fidel Castro, announced at the Fourth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Algeria the breaking-off of diplomatic relations with Israel for its aggressions against Arab states and its occupation of Palestinian lands, including Jerusalem, in the 1967 war.
In 1974 the initiator of the Palestinian liberation struggle, Commander Yasser Arafat, visited Cuba for the first time and returned in 1978 to participate in the Festival of Youth and Students held in Havana. Before that date, the Cuban government supported the Palestinian cause in a multifaceted manner and in international fora, in addition to denouncing the excesses of the Israeli occupiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
For decades the Cuban leader used his enormous political prestige and moral authority to condemn the excesses of the Zionist state, and after his retirement, in his journalistic comments entitled Reflections, he denounced the Nazi methods used by the Israeli occupants.
Since the beginning of the aggression against Gaza, which killed tens of thousands civilians, the current Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, called for national protests against the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which besides shaking the Cuban capital and other cities, included schools and workplaces. — NNN-AFRICANEWS
