Castro, who ruled Cuba from 1959 until 2006, was a staunch supporter of Palestinian self-determination, and often leveled harsh criticism of Israel’s policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians. (…) In the 1980s, Castro’s Cuba supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization and provided military support for the Fatah movement as well as training for Palestinian terrorists during the First Intifada in 1987. (…) In 2014, he accused Israel of committing a ‚Palestinian Holocaust in Gaza,‘ and described the military offensive against Hamas and other terror groups that summer as a ‚new, repugnant form of fascism.‘ In a brief conciliatory moment however, Castro in 2010 told American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic that Israel has ‚without a doubt‘ the right to exist as a Jewish state and that he had ‚nothing but sympathy‘ for the persecution of Jews through history.“ (Tamar Pileggi: „Palestinian leaders mourn loss of ‚comrade‘ Castro“)