BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced Wednesday that his government will cut diplomatic ties with Israel starting Thursday in the latest escalation of tensions between the two countries over Israel's war with Israel. Hamas.
Petro once again called Israel's blockade 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 there is a president who practices genocide,” Petro said at a rally marking International Workers’ Day in the Colombian capital. “If Palestine dies, humanity dies, and we will not let it die. »
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz quickly rebuked Petro's Platform X comments.
He said: “History will remember that Gustavo Pietro decided to side with the most despicable monsters known to humanity, who burned children, killed children, raped women and kidnapped innocent civilians. »
Weeks after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, which sparked the current war in Gaza and killed around 1,200 people, Pietro summoned the Colombian ambassador to Israel to criticize the military offensive in the country.
Historically, Colombia has been one of Israel's closest partners in Latin America. But relations between the two countries have cooled since Petro was elected Colombia's first left-wing president in 2022.
Colombia uses Israeli-made fighter jets 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 the Colombian air force used in numerous attacks on remote guerrilla camps that weakened the FARC. The attacks helped push the group into peace talks that resulted in its disarmament in 2016.
Petro participated in a rally in Bogota on Wednesday to promote his proposals for health care, pension and labor reforms.