MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Petro: Colombia no longer buying guns from “genocidal” Israel

“The world must block Netanyahu,” Petro demanded

Colombian President Gustavo Petro insisted Thursday on dubbing Israel's military deployment in Gaza as “genocide” and ordered his administration to halt all purchases of weapons from that Middle East country, it was reported in Bogotá.

 Petro's decision came after an Israeli attack on a crowd waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza, in which more than 100 people were killed, which, he said, “reminds us of the Holocaust.” Hence, Colombia “suspends all arms purchases from Israel,” he announced.

“Asking for food, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. This is called genocide and reminds us of the Holocaust even if the world powers don't like to recognize it,” Petro wrote on X. “The world must block Netanyahu,” he added.

“The attack was premeditated and intentional, in the context of genocide and ethnic cleansing of the people of the Gaza Strip. The occupation army knew that these victims had come to this area to obtain food and aid, but killed them in cold blood,” denounced the Gazan government, controlled by Hamas.

Israel denied these claims and maintained that most of those killed were in an “avalanche” provoked by a hungry mob that had looted and surrounded the trucks carrying aid.

Back in October, in response to Petro's pro-Palestine stance, Israel announced the suspension “of security exports to Colombia.”

Israel was one of the main suppliers of the Colombian Armed Forces, mainly of spare parts for Kfir fighter planes, acquired in the 1980s, when Galil rifles, manufactured under Israeli license, also arrived in the country.