Cuban president leads pro-Palestinian march in Havana

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel (C), Primer Minister Manuel Marrero (C-R), and first secretary of the Young Communist League of Cuba (UJC), Meybis Estevez (C-L), march in Havana on October 14, 2024, during a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Agence France-Presse

HAVANA — Thousands of Cubans, led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel and other leaders of the communist-run island, marched in Havana on Monday to express solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The demonstrators, including some 250 Palestinian medical students living in Cuba, carried a large banner that read “Long live free Palestine,” while the president and his allies wore traditional keffiyeh scarves.

“We are here to support the just claim of the Palestinian people, for their sovereignty, their freedom (…) and against the genocidal crusade that Israel practices towards the Palestinian people,” Michel Marino, a 20-year-old international relations student, told AFP.

READ: Cuban president marches in support of Palestinians

The march had been due to take place on the anniversary of the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel, but it was postponed due to Hurricane Milton, which lashed Cuba and Florida last week.

The October 7 attack, which triggered the war in Gaza, resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures. That number includes hostages killed in captivity.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 97 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.

READ: More than 100 countries recognize Palestine as a state

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed 42,289 people, the majority civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

“For a whole year our Gaza has not had a single day of calm, not a single day of peace and our people in the West Bank suffer daily aggression while the world remains paralyzed and unable to stop this tragedy,” said Mohammed Suwan, a Palestinian student, as he addressed the participants.

In June, the Caribbean island joined a lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its military campaign in Gaza.