Cuba condemns US decisions hindering the peace process in the Middle East

New York, 29 April  2019. Ambassador Ana Silvia Rodriguez Abascal, Deputy Permanent Representative and Chargé d'affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations, attended  today the Security Council Quarterly Open Debate on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question.

In her statement, she regretted the lack of progress in favor of the just cause of the Palestinian people and the dangerous aggravation of the deterioration of the situation on the ground. She added that while commemorating a year of the Great Return March, Israel continues to use indiscriminate and disproportionate force against tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, who  peacefully demonstrate against the illegal Israeli occupation, the blockade of the Gaza Strip and in favor of the realization of all the rights of the Palestinian people.

The diplomat reflected on how despite the Israeli air strikes and bombings that continue to slaughter the Palestinian people, the Security Council remains silent due to the repeated interference of the delegation of the United States, which prevents the body  from condemning the escalation of violence and the tragic events that took place in the Gaza Strip, since March 30, 2018.

The Cuban representative reiterated Cuba's strong rejection of the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by Israel against Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem and particularly the Gaza Strip, in flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations and of International Humanitarian Law; while condemning the illegal construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the demolition or confiscation of Palestinian properties.

Cuba supports a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the creation of two States, allowing the Palestinian people to exercise the right to self-determination and to have an independent and sovereign State with the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of refugees to return, she said.

Rodríguez Abascal also condemned the unilateral action of the United States government to recognize the city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as well as to recognize the occupied Syrian Golan as a territory of Israel, which constitutes a serious and flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations, of International Law and of the relevant resolutions of the Security Council, in particular resolution 497 of 1981.

Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations.