BOGOTÁ, Colombia: Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday that his country will cut diplomatic ties with Israel over its genocide campaign in Gaza.
“Tomorrow (Thursday) diplomatic relations with the state of Israel will be severed… for having a genocidal president,” President Petro told a May Day rally in capital Bogota, referring to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Gustavo Petro, a harsh critic of the war against Hamas, has taken a critical stance on the Gaza assault that followed an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7.
In October, just days after the war broke out, Israel said it was “halting security exports” to Colombia after Petro accused Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of using language about the Gazans similar to what the “Nazis said of the Jews.”
Israel charged Petro for “expressing support for the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists, fueling anti-Semitism,” and summoned Colombia’s envoy.
It is to mention here that Israel is one of the main providers of arms to Colombia’s military. Israel then said it was “halting security exports” to the South American country as the diplomatic feud intensified.
Colombia subsequently demanded Israel’s ambassador leave the country.
Colombia’s first leftist president, Petro, also asserted that “democratic peoples cannot allow Nazism to reestablish itself in international politics.”
In February, President Petro suspended Israeli weapons purchases after dozens of people died in a scramble for food aid in the war-torn Palestinian territory calling the event genocide that recalled the Holocaust.
Armed forces of Colombia are engaged in a decades-long conflict with leftist guerrillas, rightwing paramilitaries and drug cartels and rely on Israeli-made weapons and aircraft.
The south American country has a history of strong military and diplomatic relations with the United States and Israel.
Petro had previously supported Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who also invoked the ire of Israel for saying its Gaza campaign “isn’t a war, it’s a genocide.”
Brazil and Colombia supported South Africa’s complaint against Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, alleging the Gaza assault amounted to a breach of the Genocide Convention.
In response to Bogotá move, Israel said Colombia’s decision to cut ties is a ‘reward’ to Hamas.
