Statement of the ILPS Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Committee
The Regional Coordination for Latin America and the Caribbean of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle applauds the announcement of 3-phase Gaza ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian resistance forces and the Zionist state. This, after 15 months of a brutal genocidal war of extermination waged by the occupation forces with armaments and political backing from the imperialist powers, notably the United States.
This ceasefire is a clear victory for the Palestinian Resistance forces, using all the resources and means at their disposal, including armed resistance, along with the heroic and steadfast Palestinian people, and it is a strategic defeat for the Zionist forces. This victory comes however at the costs of thousands of lives of Palestinian Resistance martyrs and the Palestinian population of Gaza, estimated at more than 46,000 dead and more than 110,000 injured. Many more lie dead under the rubble or are weakened by months of starvation diet, destruction of health care facilities, and lack of clean water and other basic amenities.
The Zionist genocidal military clearly did not succeed, as it promised to do, in annihilating the Palestinian Resistance fighters and they have been unable to force the brave Palestinian people from their rightful land.
The Zionist state has been fully revealed to the people of the world as a racist, apartheid regime with its military ready to carry out the mass murder of civilians. As a result, millions around the globe, despite fierce state repression and the weaponization of antisemitism, have stood up month-after-month in support of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance since October 7, 2023.
Latin America is home to over 700,000 Palestinians, including 500,00 in Chile, the biggest Palestinian community outside West Asia. They were at the forefront of rallies in Santiago opposing Zionist aggression. There is also support for Palestine from the large Lebanese and Syrian diaspora communities.
An Axis of Resistance also evolved to combat the Zionist entity, including Yemen, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, all of them paying a high price for their involvement. Yemeni Armed Forces recently hit two strategic Zionist targets in the Um Al-Rashrash region and chased a US aircraft carrier that had been deployed off the coast of Yemen. Other countries have been reviewing their positions, with Ireland, for example, agreeing to turn the former Israeli Embassy into a Palestinian museum! At the same time many Israelis are seeking to move out of the entity, aware that the Zionist state is incapable of assuring a promised “safe” haven as the entity’s economic, political and diplomatic crisis deepens.
While it is clear that the peace agreement is the result of prolonged struggle by the Palestinian people, a struggle that started decades before this present confrontation, both the outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump crew will claim the peace agreement is their doing.
The struggle is clearly far from over, with even the first phase of the peace agreement yet to be fully implemented. The Netanyahu regime has consistently broken deals in the past, notably violating the recent Lebanon peace agreement from the day it was signed. And the people of Latin America and the Caribbean know only too well how US imperialism and the Zionists have worked together to organize counter insurgency campaigns, carry out coups and threaten and directly invade countries, policies that continue today.
The Zionist apartheid state is too important an imperialist foothold in the resource-rich and geographically strategic West Asia for the imperialists to give up easily, although lose it they will.
As two slogans say: ‘Ceasefire today, liberation tomorrow’ and ‘Ceasefire is the floor, liberation is the ceiling’, the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, in unconditional solidarity with the peoples of the world, will have to continue to take to the streets and fight tooth and nail to ensure not only the implementation of the ceasefire, but to ensure the liberation and total victory of the Palestinian people over Zionism and its imperialist backers.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Free!
Long live the Palestinian resistance!
Long live the valiant people of Gaza and the rest of Palestine!
Viva, Viva, Palestina!
Signed,
ILPS Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Committee