More than 100,000 Cubans rally in solidarity with Palestine
News from Cuba | Friday, 10 October 2025
Crowds gather in solidarity with the Palestinians on the Malecón, 9 October
More than 100,000 Cubans gathered at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune in Havana on Thursday 9 October for a mass rally to demand an end to the genocide in Gaza.
The huge demonstration in solidarity with Palestine, which took place in front of the United States Embassy on the Cuban capital’s Malecón, was one of many that were held in towns and throughout Cuba.
It was led by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, and attended by senior Cuban government officials, the charge d’affaires of the Palestinian Embassy in Havana, and Palestinian students studying at universities across the island.
Speakers denounced the brutal Israeli attacks, and messages of solidarity from members of the Global Sumud Flotilla were relayed to the crowd from huge video screens. Kieran Andrieu, a British-Palestinian member of the Flotilla who had just been released from an Israeli internment camp in the Negev desert, sent a message detailing the terrible conditions in the camp, the importance of solidarity, and thanking Cuba for their historic internationalism.
“No state in modern history, no political entity in modern history has done more to advance internationalism and international solidarity and anti-imperialism through internationalism than Cuba.
“And I want to thank you very specifically for the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial support that you give to my people, to the Palestinian people. Specifically now, I know that you're currently training more than 200 Palestinian doctors, and that speaks to a long, proud tradition and lineage that you in Cuba have always presided over,” he said.
Three Palestinian students expressed, through songs and poetry, their outrage at the deaths of more than 67,000 people and the injuries sustained by more than 200,000 two years since the first Israeli attacks.
Sixth-year Palestinian medical student Abdallah Samir Abdel Raham expressed his gratitude for Cuba’s unconditional solidarity with his country over so many years.
Following the rally, President Miguel Diaz-Canel met with more than 100 Palestinian students studying medicine in Cuba. Students shared their stories of pain, resistance and gratitude for the love of the Cuban people. The Cuban president assured them: “You are not alone. In Cuba you have fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters.” He recalled Fidel Castro’s legacy of solidarity with Palestine and reaffirmed that both the Cuban and Palestinian people were “two peoples in resistance.”
Palestinian students with Miguel Díaz-Canel
