Havana, September 23rd, 2024 - The Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Cuba, H.E. Mr. Akram Mohammad Samhan, who will soon complete his diplomatic mission, was awarded with the Friendship Medal at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba. This high distinction, received from the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gerardo Peñalver Portal, on behalf of the President of the Republic, was imposed on the Palestinian Ambassador in recognition of his contribution to the strengthening and consolidation of the historic ties of friendship and solidarity between Palestine and Cuba, nations that will celebrate in 2024, the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, ratified Cuba's position of unrestricted support for a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, allowing the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and to have an independent and sovereign State with the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and guaranteeing the right of return of refugees.
The Palestinian ambassador thanked the Cuban people and the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, for the constant support in the defense of the Palestinian cause and the contribution to the training of professionals in the medical field, in spite of the intensification of the genocidal blockade imposed on Cuba by the government of the United States.
Cuba reaffirms its friendship and solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemns the genocide committed by the Zionist government of Israel, which has murdered more than 40 thousand Palestinians, most of them women and children, and has destroyed the entire infrastructure of hospitals and health centers, schools, homes, churches and bombed civilian refugee camps in the Gaza Strip.
(Embassy of Cuba in Seychelles)