The Colombian Government officially notified Israel of the breaking of diplomatic relations in rejection of what President Gustavo Petro called “genocide” in Gaza, and said that will begin to coordinate the departure of that country’s diplomats in Colombia.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia informs that yesterday (Thursday) the Note Verbale was officially delivered to the Israeli ambassador in Colombia regarding the Government’s decision to break diplomatic relations with the State of Israel as of the date “The Colombian Foreign Ministry reported in a brief statement.
The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, had announced this Wednesday (05/01/2024), in his speech to the workers for May Day, that tomorrow he will break relations with Israel for what he called “genocide” against the Palestinian people.
“Here before you, the Government of change, the president of the republic, informs that tomorrow diplomatic relations will be broken with the State of Israel (…) for having a Government, for having a genocidal president,” Petro said in the event in Bogotá.
Petro, who is an ardent defender of the Palestinian cause, said he believes “that today all of humanity in the streets, by the millions, agrees with us and we with them,” in reference to his decision to break relations. “It cannot be, it cannot return, the times of genocide, of the extermination of an entire people before our eyes, before our passivity, cannot come,” the president stated in front of the workers.
The Colombian president had already threatened on October 15, two weeks after the start of the war in Gaza following the attacks on Israel by the armed wing of Hamas, to suspend diplomatic relations with the Jewish State.
On March 26, he reiterated his threat to break relations if Israel did not comply with the ceasefire resolution in Gaza requested by the UN Security Council.
“If Palestine dies, humanity dies and we are not going to let it die just as we are not going to let humanity die,” he stated on the May Day stage. After Petro’s announcement to break diplomatic relations with Israel, the audience responded with shouts of “Long live free and sovereign Palestine” and “Down with the Palestinian genocide.”
