BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — Colombian president Gustavo Pedro announced on Wednesday that his government will sever diplomatic relations with Israel from Thursday, in the latest escalation of tensions between the countries over the Israel-Hamas War.
Petro again described Israel’s siege of Gaza as “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 severed… for having a genocidal president,” Petro said during an International Workers’ Day march in Colombia’s capital. “If Palestine dies, humanity dies, and we will not let it die.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz quickly rebuked Petro’s comments on Platform X.
“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.
Weeks after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, which triggered the current war in Gaza and killed some 1,200 people, Petro recalled Colombia’s ambassador to Israel while criticizing the country’s military offensive.
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 warplanes and machine guns built in Israel to fight drug cartels and rebel groups, and both countries signed a free trade agreement in 2020.
“Relations between Israel and Colombia have always been warm, and no hate-filled, anti-Semitic president will be able to change that,” Katz wrote on Tuesday. “The state of Israel will continue to defend its citizens without concern and without fear.”
The South American country deepened its military ties with Israel in the late 1980s, through the purchase of Kfir fighters 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 Bogotá to promote his proposal for health, pension and labor reforms.
