The Press Office of the CC of the KKE issued the following statement on the deployment of the Greek frigate "Psara" in the Southeastern Mediterranean:

"The dispatch of the Greek frigate "Psara" —with a crew and security team of more than 200 people in total— to the South-Eastern Mediterranean, to join a NATO force operating in the region, is a very dangerous development, at a time when the conflict in the Middle East is a breath away from further escalation and a generalized military engagement.

The government's pretexts of a "planned exercise" are of no value when the aggressive nature of such missions is a given and when yet another massacre of the Palestinian people is being committed by the State of Israel, with the active support of the US-NATO.

Besides, the government's own leaks, which try to portray the frigate's mission as unrelated to what is happening in the region, state that "no request has been made by NATO" to escort a US aircraft carrier sailing to Israel, suggesting that if it is made, they will accept it.

A few days after the government was celebrating the launching of the first "Belhara" frigate, the true intentions behind such armaments, which are paid dearly by the Greek people ostensibly for the "defence of the country", are clearly shown.

At the same time, there are relentless questions that demand an answer as to whether and how the bases, especially that of Souda, that all Greek governments have granted to the US-NATO forces are being used for the slaughter of the Palestinian people.

We demand:

- The immediate return of the frigate "Psara" to Greece;

- No involvement of our country in the NATO-US-Israel massacre in Gaza;

- Immediate implementation of the unanimous decision of the Greek Parliament in 2015 to recognize the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders.

RIZOSPASTIS decries the orgy of official propaganda

The daily newspaper "Rizospastis", the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece, slates the state and private mass media of the country, which, as it stresses, reproduce the propaganda of the Israeli and Euro-Atlantic staffs, at a time when the massacre of Palestinians is escalating and a ground offensive in Gaza is being prepared. The media reports on the conflict are dominated by several videos that the official services of the Israeli army circulate to dramatize the situation and demonstrate the brutality and inhumanity of the Palestinians in order to whitewash the occupation and justify the ongoing massacre. In none of these cases is there any evidence, nor do the journalists bother to seek their validity.

For example, the video of young children allegedly being caged by the Palestinians turned out to have been shot days before the operations began, and no one can confirm what it actually shows. Likewise, the German tourist who became a symbol of the brutality of her kidnappers and executioners, turned out to be alive and is being treated in hospital, as her family confirms. The "decapitated babies", spoken of in an official video by the Israeli army, came from the "testimony" of a single Israeli soldier, reproduced as a fact by an Israeli journalist, only to admit shortly afterwards how unreliable her source was. The same applies to the rapes or mass murders at the music event, where 260 bodies were said to have been found three days after the attack, without a video or photo confirming it. All this shows that Israel and the US-NATO are trying to legitimize their dangerous plans in the region, which are directed against all peoples including the Israeli people, through fabricated news that also spread by the Greek media. The same goes for the Greek government, which is escalating Greek involvement with the consent of all the other parties, even sending a frigate to patrol with the US fleet in the dangerous waters of the Eastern Mediterranean.

As Rizospastis stresses, "The circumstances that suck the Palestinian issue into the maelstrom of intensifying geopolitical competition, as well as the opposing imperialist interests reflected in the various international statements on current developments, do not negate the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to their own homeland. Therefore, it is now urgent to strengthen solidarity with the Palestinian people and support their struggle for a free homeland, against those who call upon the people to side with the occupying Israeli state and to become more deeply involved in plans that smell of gunpowder; against the various mouthpieces that put the perpetrator and the victim on an equal footing".

Dimitris Koutsoumbas: Those who long for peace should join us in the struggle for a truly independent Palestinian state

On 10/10/23, the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, met with the Palestinian ambassador to Greece, Yussef Dorkhomat, at the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Party in Perissos. The meeting was also attended by Giorgos Marinos, member of the PB of the CC and MP of the KKE.

After the meeting, D. Koutsoumbas made the following statement: "As long as the reactionary government of Israel continues its pogrom against the Palestinians, as it is doing now and has done for decades with the murders of civilians, with apartheid, with tortures, with imprisonments, with the occupation of Palestinian territories and with settlements, the war and the developments we are experiencing these days, the bloody conflicts, will be inevitable. That is why those who really believe in and long for peace in the long-suffering Middle East, should join us in the struggle for a truly independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, with the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli occupying troops from the Palestinian territories, so that the peoples of the region, i.e. the Palestinian, the Israeli and others do not pay the price. This is the only solution so that the people do not pay a heavy toll and civilians are not killed unjustly".