PARIS: The Cuban Embassy in France has sharply criticized the international community for what it described as a double standard after a viral video of a young monkey named Panch at a Japanese zoo gained widespread attention. The embassy highlighted that while viewers around the world expressed deep emotion for the orphaned monkey clutching a toy as a substitute for its lost mother the suffering of thousands of orphaned children in Gaza is largely ignored.

The embassy’s post on X (formerly Twitter) contrasted the viral footage with images of a young girl in Gaza holding her doll amidst the rubble of her destroyed home following Israeli airstrikes. The girl’s grief, compounded by the loss of her family, paints a starkly different picture of human suffering.

In its statement the Cuban Embassy condemned what it called selective empathy criticizing global audiences for being emotionally moved by an animal’s plight while failing to respond to real human tragedies. The embassy described this imbalance of attention as shameful and reflective of a troubling moral inconsistency in the world’s response to suffering.

The tweet has sparked discussions on social media and has drawn reactions from various quarters, highlighting ongoing debates about humanitarian priorities, media coverage, and international awareness of crises in conflict zones like Gaza.