BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced Wednesday that his government would sever diplomatic ties with Israel starting Thursday, in the latest escalation of tensions between the countries over the Israel-Hamas War.
Petro once again called Israel’s siege of Gaza a “genocide.” He previously suspended arms purchases from Israel and compared that country’s actions in Gaza to those of Nazi Germany.
“Tomorrow, diplomatic relations with the State of Israel will be broken … because of a genocidal president,” Petro said during an International Workers’ Day march in the Colombian capital. “If Palestine dies, humanity dies, and we are not going to let it die. »
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz quickly rebuked Petro’s comments on the X platform.
“History will remember that Gustavo Petro decided to side with the most despicable monsters known to humanity, who burned babies, murdered children, raped women and kidnapped innocent civilians,” he said. -he declares.
Weeks after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, which sparked the current war in Gaza and killed some 1,200 people, Petro recalled the Colombian ambassador to Israel as he criticized the military offensive of the country.
Historically, Colombia had been one of Israel’s closest partners in Latin America. But relations between the two nations have cooled since Petro was elected Colombia’s first left-wing president in 2022.
Colombia uses Israeli-built warplanes and machine guns to fight drug cartels and rebel groups, and the two countries signed a free trade agreement in 2020.
“Relations between Israel and Colombia have always been warm and no anti-Semitic, hate-filled president will succeed in changing that,” Katz wrote Tuesday. “The State of Israel will continue to defend its citizens without concern or fear.”
The South American country deepened its military ties with Israel in the late 1980s by purchasing Kfir fighter jets that were used by the Colombian Air Force in numerous attacks on remote guerrilla camps that weakened the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The attacks helped push the group into peace talks that resulted in its disarmament in 2016.
Petro participated in Wednesday’s march in Bogota to promote his proposals for health care, pensions and labor reforms.
