Colombia demands Israel envoy leave amid spat over war with Hamas

Colombia on Monday demanded that Israel's ambassador leave the South American country amid a worsening spat over President Gustavo Petro's remarks on the war with Hamas.

Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva said the envoy, Gali Dagan, should "at a minimum, apologize and leave" after criticizing Petro's comparison of Israeli attacks on Gaza with the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

Leyva lashed out on social media at the "rudeness" of Israel's response to Petro, adding: "Shame."

Petro, in one post on X, formerly Twitter, accused Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of using language about the people of Gaza similar to what the "Nazis said of the Jews."

Israel declared war on Hamas after fighters with the militant group streamed across the Gaza-Israeli border in a surprise attack on October 7 and assaulted Israeli towns, settlements and army bases, killing more than 1,400 people.

Israel has responded with bombardment that has killed at least 2,750 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them ordinary Palestinians.

Colombia's first leftist president asserted that "democratic peoples cannot allow Nazism to reestablish itself in international politics."

On Sunday, Israel, one of the main providers of arms to Colombia's military, said it was "halting security exports" to the South American country as the diplomatic feud escalated.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said Colombia's ambassador, Margarita Manjarrez, had been summoned over Petro's "hostile and anti-Semitic statements."

The president's statements were received with "astonishment," said the spokesman.

He accused Petro of "expressing support for the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists, fuelling anti-Semitism, affecting the representatives of the State of Israel and threatening the peace of the Jewish community in Colombia."

- 'Genocide' -

In response to Haiat's statement, Petro said his country does not support "genocide."

"If we have to suspend foreign relations with Israel, we suspend them," he added.

Colombia's armed forces, engaged in a decades-long conflict with leftist guerrillas, rightwing paramilitaries and drug cartels, uses Israeli-made weapons and aircraft.

The country has a history of strong diplomatic and military relations with Israel and the United States.

Petro has also engaged in an online war of words directly with the ambassador, Dagan, who had urged the president to condemn a "terrorist attack against innocent civilians."

In his response, Petro said: "terrorism is to kill innocent children, whether it be in Colombia or in Palestine."

Dagan then invited Petro to visit the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem and the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, which the president retorted he saw being "copied in Gaza."

"No democrat in the world can accept Gaza being turned into a concentration camp," Petro added.

Initially, Colombia's foreign ministry had issued a statement to "vehemently condemn the terrorism and attacks against civilians that have occurred in Israel" and expressing solidarity with the victims of Hamas.

The link to that statement was later disabled, with a new one making no mention of "terrorism."