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Colombia to cut diplomatic ties with Israel over Gaza war

  • President Gustavo Petro says cutting ties with Israel for having a ‘genocidal’ government
  • Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Petro of being ‘antisemitic and full of hate’

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Israeli soldiers gather near the Israeli-Gaza border in southern Israel before they enter the Gaza Strip. Photo: AP

President Gustavo Petro said that Colombia will sever diplomatic ties with Israel, whose government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he described as “genocidal” in its war in Gaza.

“Tomorrow (Thursday) diplomatic relations with the state of Israel will be severed … for having a government, for having a president that is genocidal,” Petro, a harsh critic of the devastating war against Hamas, told a May Day rally in Bogota on Wednesday.

Netanyahu is Israel’s head of government, while the country’s president – a role which is largely ceremonial – is Isaac Herzog.

The war in Gaza broke out after the unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7. That assault resulted in the deaths of some 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro delivers a speech in Bogota on Wednesday. Photo: AFP
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro delivers a speech in Bogota on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages, 129 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 Israel says are presumed dead.

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