1. The news pouring out from Lebanon is highly alarming. Israel, once again violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon, is bombing civilian targets and terrorizing the populations of Beirut and other localities, namely in the South of the country. The destruction is great and numerous the victims, namely children.

2. In view of the impunity of the violent military actions perpetrated during the last days in Gaza and the West Bank against the Palestinian people, the Zionist government of Israel feels encouraged to continue and intensify, under the usual excuse, its terrorist policy with the aim of annihilating the Palestinian cause, annexing territories, imposing its hegemony in the region, in alliance with imperialism.

It is necessary to put an immediate end to this criminal escalade which is causing innumerable victims and countless suffering and dragging the whole Middle East region into a conflict of larger and more dangerous proportions.

It is necessary to condemn, without any reservations, the brutal actions of “retaliation” and “punishment” of whole populations, with a cynical trampling of the most elementary human rights and the ostensive abuse of international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter, that characterize Israel’s fascist policy. The silence and the complicity of the European Union and of the UN regarding these crimes, that nothing can justify, is unacceptable and constitutes a true insult to human dignity.

3. The PCP firmly condemns Israel’s aggression in Lebanon and, as it does in relation to the Zionist crimes in Palestine, demands from the Portuguese government a clear stand against the escalade of aggression and war and in defence of international law, of peace and the sovereignty of the peoples. The withdrawal by Israel from all territories occupied in 1967 and the compliance with the UN resolutions on the right of the Palestinian people to its own independent and sovereign State, is an indispensable condition for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

The PCP expresses its solidarity to the Communist Party of Lebanon, to the patriotic and progressive forces and the people of Lebanon, confident that, as in previous hardships, they will resist aggression and ensure the independence and territorial integrity of their country.

The PCP appeals to the Portuguese people, using all means at their disposal, to voice their solidary to the peoples of Lebanon and Palestine, subject to continuing and cruel Zionist aggressions.