President of Venezuela's National Assembly expresses support for Palestine

"The genocide committed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is matched by those who supply the bombs, planes and missiles," Jorge Rodriguez said Monday during the opening of the World Antifascist Parliamentary Forum in the capital Caracas.

"Every hospital bombed, every university and school destroyed shows what the US military industry is doing for the warmongers," he added.

Stressing that “in the name of fascism, the 20th century was stained with blood as one of the most violent centuries that humanity has ever experienced,” Rodriguez said that “fascism is the strategy, the tool that those who consider themselves the owners of the world, owners of a single way of living life, of seeing life, resort to in order to try to eliminate any form of rebellion, of rebelliousness, which is inherent to the human condition.”

More than 300 experts from 70 countries are participating in the World Antifascist Parliamentary Forum, according to a statement from the Venezuelan Presidential Press Office.

The forum aims to underscore the significance of parliamentary democracy for peace, addressing the relationships between imperialism, fascism and Zionism while discussing human rights and the implications of new technologies on these.

Israel has continued a devastating offensive on Gaza since an attack last October by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

Nearly 43,400 people have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 102,200 others injured, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.