Venezuelan international brigadist Valeria Cortés with a Palestinian woman. Photo: Valeria Cortés.
Valeria Cortés, a Venezuelan international brigadist for Palestine and human rights activist, spoke with Sputnik about the horrors she witnessed in the Gaza Strip, one of the places most violently impacted by the Israeli genocidal aggression against Palestine.
Cortés has spent years with the people of Gaza, documenting human rights violations and accompanying Palestinian farmers and fishermen amid Zionist attacks.
Her account gains greater relevance in the context of the current escalation in the Middle East. According to recent figures from Gazan authorities, more than 41,000 people have been killed by Israeli bombings, a majority of them children and women. The devastation is so profound that, for Cortés, what the Palestinian people have experienced transcends the term “conflict” and falls into the realm of capitalist genocide, backed by the United States and other Western powers.
A people in resistance
Cortés first arrived in Gaza before 2014, after having to overcome numerous barriers, especially because entry to the Strip has been “controlled and limited by the Israeli authorities” for decades. The Venezuelan activist admitted that her expectations of the Palestinian people were different from the reality that she encountered.
“I went with a preconceived notion of the people of Gaza as a hardened, distrustful people, but I was pleasantly surprised because it is exactly the opposite,” she said. “The pain has not hardened their hearts. On the contrary, it has brought forth a sense of solidarity throughout the community.”
According to Cortés, one of the most remarkable things is the social fabric that the Gazan people have built despite the repression and bombings. “They are a very cultured people who love to learn. Education is a form of resistance for them,” she asserts, describing a people who, amid destruction, find ways to cultivate their culture, to learn, and to move forward.
Witness to genocide
The most raw and devastating accounts by Valeria Cortés are from her testimony about the 2014 genocide in Gaza. The volunteer recounted one of her most heartbreaking experiences while assisting the victims of the Israeli bombings.
“I saw the best and the worst of humanity,” she remarked. “I saw people risking their lives to rescue others, and I also saw the most horrible: US planes launching missiles at schools, hospitals, homes, and children playing in the streets. The worst thing I had to endure was a small child dying in my arms inside an ambulance, with his intestines out of his body, while his family members cried and screamed around us.”
This type of experience, repeated over and over again, left an indelible mark on Cortés. She explained that although the genocide of 2014 was one of the darkest chapters in the history of Gaza, the process of extermination and colonization has been systematic and has been going on for decades.
“I cannot call it a Palestinian-Israeli conflict because it is actually genocide. A genocide is not a single event but a process,” she explained clearly.
Cortés highlighted that the bombs falling on Gaza have a clear label: Made in USA. In her opinion, the military and economic support from the United States to the Zionist entity has been one of the determining factors for the perpetuation of the genocide.
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Resistance is the only way out
According to Valeria Cortés, the only path to the liberation of Palestine is resistance. Throughout the interview with Sputnik, she insisted that Zionism, like Nazism, understands no other language but that of weapons.
“Zionism will be stopped just like the Nazis were stopped, by fighting them,” she stressed. “They don’t understand reason. The Palestinian people are right, but they can only defend themselves with force.”
In her role as an international brigadist, Cortés witnessed the Palestinians’ daily struggle for survival. She told the stories of farmers who cultivate the land near the fence that separates Gaza from the territories occupied by “Israel,” risking their lives daily under the fire of drones and tanks.
She highlighted the testimonies of fishers who, despite the restrictions and attacks, continue to go out to sea in order to feed their families. “A fisherman told me how he protected the engine of his boat with his body when Israeli ships started bombing it,” Cortés recounted. “They severely injured him in the abdomen. He became paralyzed, but he preferred that over losing the support for his family.”
Israeli brutality and indifference of the international community
In Cortés’ opinion, one of the most striking aspects of the situation is the impunity with which the Zionist regime has acted for years. “It has killed more than 10% of the population of Gaza. Thousands of families have been buried under the rubble because rescue teams are not allowed to enter,” she decried.
The activist emphasized that the impunity with which the Israeli forces operate has multiplied barbarism, leading to unimaginable atrocities.
Cortés also criticized the hypocrisy of the international community that, despite condemning the genocide of Palestinians, does not take concrete actions to stop it. In her opinion, her role is clear: to unconditionally support the Palestinian resistance. “It cannot be that we stand with the Palestinians when they are being killed but not when they defend themselves,” she asserted. The support from the international community must go beyond words. It must translate into actions such as breaking relations with “Israel” and pressure to stop the genocide.
A cry that will not be silenced
Despite the brutality and pain, Cortés sees hope in the resistance of the Palestinian people and the possibility of decolonization of the region.
“I believe that many people have opened their eyes to a situation that the powerful, multimillion-dollar propaganda of the United States and Zionism, of capitalism in general—because this is a capitalist genocide—tried to hide,” Cortés expressed. “Their eyes have been opened despite the enormous propaganda that whitewashed the Israeli army as a ‘moral army,’ that Zionism was a people. We can already see that it is not so.”
For Cortés, the future of Palestine is freedom. Although the road is long and painful, she is convinced that Israeli colonialism will fall, just like the US imperialism that supports it. “The decaying empire is falling. It is going to die, but it is going to die fighting. The sad thing about all this is all the valuable lives that it is costing,” she concluded.
(Sputnik) by José Negrón Valera
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
