THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba has followed with extreme concern the recent intensification of acts of aggression against the Palestinian population on the part of the Israeli government, which has caused dozens of deaths and injuries.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers inadmissible and criminal the siege of the Gaza Strip, including the cutting off of electricity and food supplies to 1.5 million Palestinian civilians in direct violation of international law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba expresses its most energetic condemnation of these acts by the Israeli government aimed at annihilating the Palestinian people and breaking their resistance through hunger and thirst, including children, women, the sick and the elderly, who are suffering the forceful and illegal occupation of their territory and are the object of the inhuman collective punishment imposed once again by the occupying forces.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba demands that the Israeli government immediately ends the inhuman blockade of the Gaza Strip and calls for the mobilization of the international community to demand respect for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the establishment of an independent and sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, and the unconditional return of all the Arab territories occupied in June 1967, as the only way to attain a just and lasting peace for all the nations of the region.

Havana, January 23, 2008