Colombia suspends arms purchases from Israel for “genocide that remembers the Holocaust”: Petro

President Gustavo Petro announced this Thursday that Colombia “suspends all purchases of weapons from Israel” in response to the attack perpetrated during the distribution of food and humanitarian aid in Gaza City, where more than a hundred people died and another 700 were injured.

“Begging for food, more than 100 Palestinians were murdered by (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu. This is called genocide and is reminiscent of the Holocaust, even if the world powers do not like to recognize it,” Petro said on his X account, where he republished a message from another account with a video of the massacre where dozens of bodies can be seen piled up.

And that is why he asked that the “world must block Netanyahu. “Colombia suspends all purchases of weapons from Israel.”

At least 112 Gazans died and another 760 were injured this Thursday on Al Rashid Street, in the southeast of Gaza City, while they were waiting for humanitarian aid that arrived in a convoy of 32 trucks, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health. of the Strip.

“The attack was premeditated and intentional, in the context of the 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 it killed them in cold blood “denounced the Gazan government, controlled by Hamas.

However, The Israeli Army denied this claim and maintains that most of the deaths were in an “avalanche” caused by a hungry crowd that looted and surrounded the trucks carrying aid, causing them to retreat.

Israeli exports

It is not the first time that Israel and Colombia threaten or make a decision of this type, since In October, amid the escalation of diplomatic tension between the two countries due to Petro’s firm stance in support of Palestine, Israel announced the suspension “of security exports to Colombia.”

The Colombian Armed Forces have had Israel among their suppliers, mainly of spare parts for the Kfir combat aircraft, acquired in the 1980s, a period in which the Galil rifles, which are manufactured in the country under an Israeli license, also arrived in the country. .

Israel is an important trading partner of Colombia, to which in 2021 it exported $115 million not only in security products, but also in transmission equipment, pesticides, medical instruments, textiles, polymers and machinery for different sectors.

Colombia, for its part, exported 325 million dollars, represented mainly in charcoal briquettes, coffee and flowers.

According to the National Foreign Trade Association (Analdex), in 2023 Colombia did not import weapons from Israel, but it has purchased other supplies such as telecommunications devices, motors or beauty products.