Israel to Columbia and Chile: Don't Align With Iran

The Foreign Ministry responded this evening (Wednesday) to the decision of the governments of Columbia and Chile to recall their ambassadors from Israel in protest against the war against Hamas in Gaza. In a statement issued and made public, they called on South American countries to condemn Hamas and call for the release of the hostages.

“On October 7, terrorists of the Hamas organization murdered over 1400 Israelis and kidnapped 240 to the Gaza Strip. Among the victims of the Hamas terror attack are also citizens of Columbia, Chile, and other Latin American countries,” the statement read. “The State of Israel is in a war forced on it. A war against a terror organization which uses the citizens of the Gaza Strip as human shields, is carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity, and violates the human rights of the citizens of Gaza and the citizens of Israel.”

They also appealed to the governments of the two countries: “Israel calls on Columbia and Chile to explicitly condemn the Hamas terror organization which murdered and kidnapped children, women, elderly, and babies. Israel expects Columbia and Chile to stand by it, to support the right of a democratic state to defend its citizens, to call for the immediate release of all the hostages, and not align with Venezuela and Iran which provide a tailwind to Hamas’ terror.”

This comes in response to the governments of Columbia and Chile recalling their ambassadors from Israel while condemning the IDF’s attacks in Gaza – without making reference to the terror organization’s massacre in the southern settlements on October 7. They thus joined with Bolivia, which announced yesterday that it was severing ties with Israel due to the war.

According to Columbian President Gustavo Petro, “the attacks in the Gaza Strip are a massacre of the Palestinian people. If Israel does not stop, we cannot stay there.” Chile President Gabriel Boric, considered to be a particularly anti-Israel politician, called the IDF offensive “collective punishment” of Gazan residents.