Cuba Condemns Israel’s Flotilla Torture, Gaza Crimes

(MENAFN) Cuba's United Nations ambassador launched a sweeping indictment of Israel and the United States at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, condemning the detention and alleged torture of humanitarian flotilla activists in international waters and accusing Washington of bankrolling what he called crimes against humanity in Gaza.

"We denounce the arbitrary detention in international waters and the torture by the Israeli regime of Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Avila, members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, who were transporting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip," Ernesto Soberon Guzman told the council's open session on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.

Framing the flotilla incident as part of a chronic pattern of unchecked violations, he added: "We reject the impunity with which Israel commits new violations of international law and human rights."

Guzman widened his critique to encompass the broader erosion of international humanitarian law, cautioning against "the trend of reinterpreting these norms in favor of hegemonic and dominating interests in order to justify indiscriminate attacks, collective punishment, and the use of hunger and blockades as methods of warfare."

On conditions across Palestinian territory, the ambassador was unsparing: "The systematic Israeli attacks throughout the occupied Palestinian Territory against homes, shelters for displaced persons, places of worship, streets, vehicles, humanitarian facilities and schools constitute crimes against humanity."

He called for Israel to be brought to account "for apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people," and squarely blamed the United States for enabling Tel Aviv through sustained political, diplomatic, military and financial backing.

Guzman also reiterated Havana's "strong condemnation of the attacks carried out by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Pivoting to Cuba's own standoff with Washington, he accused the US of open belligerence, saying it "openly announces before the world its intention to use armed force against our country, despite the absence of any aggression on our part or any valid argument to justify such a grave and irrational action."

The ambassador characterised Washington's economic pressure campaign against Havana as an act of aggression in its own right — "an energy siege classified under international law as an act of war, and through executive orders imposing secondary sanctions on foreign companies, banks and entities, even when their business in the US is unrelated to Cuba."

He condemned the underlying intent of those policies as "aimed at subduing the entire Cuban population through hunger and desperation and intended to generate a nationwide social, economic and political disaster."

Pushing back against Washington's national security framing of Cuba, Guzman was categorical: "It is false to declare Cuba an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security of the US."

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