Leftist Latin American and Caribbean heads of state gathered in Caracas, Venezuela, condemned Israel on Wednesday for committing a “genocide” in Gaza through its self-defense operations against Hamas.

Support for Hamas dominated the 23rd meeting of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) trade bloc. ALBA-TCP, often simply referred to as “ALBA,” is a self-declared “anti-imperialist” far-left free trade bloc founded in Havana, Cuba, in December 2004 by the late dictators Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro.

While the bloc was originally founded by the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes as a two-country group, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Saint Cristopher and Nevis, and Saint Lucia are current members of the organization. Suriname, Haiti, Iran, and Syria are “observer” members of the leftist trade bloc.

The latest meeting of the bloc, hosted in Caracas by Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, concluded with a 22-point joint statement addressing topics such as support for Venezuela’s upcoming sham presidential election, an end to U.S. sanctions imposed on Maduro and Nicaragua’s communist regime, and praise for the China-led BRICS trade and security bloc.

In the statement, ALBA member states expressed their “strongest repudiation and condemnation of the genocide committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, with the complicity and support of the government of the United States, which has resulted in one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our times.”

The meeting also produced a “Special Communique on the situation in Palestine” in which the leftist trade bloc demanded “Palestine” be recognized as a state with Jerusalem as its capital and called for its membership in the United Nations. The call for the creation of a state of “Palestine” through the destruction of Israel is a core demand of Hamas, the radical jihadist terror organization based in Gaza that invaded Israel in October, killing 1,200 people and engaging in widespread atrocities such as gang rape, infanticide, abduction, and torture.

The ALBA communique called for the international community to demand that Israel “immediately cease fire in Gaza and … stop the genocide, the war crimes and the crimes against humanity perpetrated against its people,” referring to operations to prevent Hamas from repeating the atrocities of October 7. The leftist nations asserted the “Israeli government and its supporters” needed to be “held accountable for the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people in accordance with international law.”

While Wednesday’s 23rd meeting was the first time the bloc has gathered since December 2022’s 22nd ALBA meeting in Havana, Cuba, the bloc has issued several statements after Hamas’ unprecedented October 7 terrorist attack on Israel — all of which made no mention of Hamas nor did they condemn the jihadist organization’s atrocities committed on that day, which left over 1,200 citizens dead and hundreds taken hostage, including several Latin American citizens.

The past ALBA statements issued after October 7, much like Wednesday’s, make no mention of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel. ALBA instead has repeatedly called for the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. No ALBA head of state or representative who attended Wednesday’s meeting made any mention of the October 7 atrocities, nor did the final joint statements.

“ALBA continues with its flag flying high as an alternative to the extreme right and fascism in our America and the world,” Nicolás Maduro wrote on social media, sharing a copy of the special communique.

“The issue of Palestine, it is not a war, it is a genocide and the humanist – and, forgive me, some of you, Christian, deeply Christian – position [is] of solidarity, accompaniment, and love for the noble people of Palestine,” Maduro said during the leftist head of state encounter. “Palestine lives, Palestine fights and Palestine will prevail into the future!”

During the meeting, the Castro regime’s figurehead president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, rejected on behalf of the ALBA bloc “the impunity with which Israel acts, thanks to the complicity and support of the United State government and despite the serious risks of regionalization of the conflict in the Middle East.”

“Only an imperial mentality, an interventionist purpose, can deny that peace and stability in that region depend in the first place on a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Díaz-Canel claimed, “which contemplates the creation of a sovereign and independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and guaranteeing the right of return of all refugees to their land.”

Bolivia’s socialist and pro-Iran President Luis Arce proposed that ALBA include “Palestine” as a member of the bloc. It is unclear whether Arce would recognize Hamas as the government of “Palestine” or the Palestinian Authority in control of the West Bank.

“We should recall that in October last year, the ALBA-TCP was one of the first regional blocs to speak out against the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip, warning about the already evident violation of the norms of international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter in the midst of the intensification of the conflict,” Arce said.

Grenada’s Foreign Minister Joseph Andall claimed that the situation in Gaza is a “stain on the conscience of humanity,” accusing the Western world of “showing its hypocrisy when the most advanced military machine acts against civilians, who they murder every day.”

“And as always, we only see hypocrisy, we are small countries but we understand the principles of humanity and dignity and we call on the world to lobby their governments to condemn these acts perpetrated in full light and in front of everyone,” Andall said. “History will not be kind to us if we let this massacre continue and do nothing.”

The Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, rejected the “genocidal government of Israel that counts with the support of the most powerful country in history.”

Gonsalves claimed that he has “always been anti-imperialist,” adding that he recognizes the “genocide” in Gaza because “the history of his nation records what was done by the British.”

The Prime Minister continued by claiming that the only way to compensate for this suffering is “reparations by those who promoted this cruel anti-human system.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.