Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Wednesday he will break diplomatic relations with Israel over its actions in Gaza after threatening to do so last March, if Israel does not comply with the United Nations Security Council resolution, which includes a "demand" for a cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He then also called for the "immediate and unconditional release" of the hostages.
Petro has already heavily criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and requested to join South Africa's case accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
"Here in front of you, the government of change, of the president of the republic announces that tomorrow we will break diplomatic relations with the state of Israel ... for having a government, for having a president who is genocidal," Petro told cheering crowds in Bogota who marched to mark International Worker's Day and back Petro's social and economic reforms.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Petro was antisemitic and full of hate. "The Colombian president promised to award the rapists and murderrs of Hamas, and today he lived up to his word," Katz said. "History will remember that Gustavo Petro decided to stand with the worse monsters humanity has known, who burned babies, murdered children, raped women and abducted innocent civilians. Israeli-Colombian relations have always been warn and no antisemitic and hateful president can change that," he said.
The Colombian president compared IDF soldiers to Nazis in a post in December adding a video clip of an area in Gaza after it was bombed by the military, claiming the IDF does not regard Palestinians as humans.
A month earlier he recalled the Colombian Ambassador to Israel for consultations claiming he could not remain there is Israel does not stop "the massacre of Palestinians." He demanded two weeks before, that Israel's envoy to Bogota apologize and leave after Jerusalem's suspension of defense exports to Colombia in response to Petro calling IDF soldiers Nazis.