President Gustavo Petro announced that Colombia is suspending arms purchases from Israel

Published at: 29/02/2024 10:08 PM

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, announced this Thursday, February 29, that his country will suspend the purchase of weapons from Israel, due to the most recent bombings by the Israeli Army of civilians waiting to receive food in the Gaza Strip.

“The world must block Netanyahu. Colombia suspends all arms purchases from Israel,” Petro said on his account on the social network X.

He described the incident as a sign of “genocide” and stated that it was reminiscent of the “Holocaust, even if world powers don't like to recognize it”.

For its part, the portal Russia Today, reported that Petro has been one of the Latin American leaders most critical of Israel's actions in Gaza. The previous week, he angrily responded to Israeli demands for Colombian support for Brazil, in the midst of the diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

“It's outrageous to kill boys and girls with bombs. I am outraged against the genocide,” he wrote on the social network X, in response to statements made by Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant.

In the review, he specified that at least 109 Palestinians died and 760 more were injured as a result of an Israeli attack on February 29, as reported earlier by the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip.

The Al Jazeera network, which released the official report, said that at the time of the bombing, a group of citizens was gathered near the Al Nabulsi roundabout, in the Gaza Strip, while waiting for trucks with flour.

After opening fire, Tel Aviv Army tanks advanced into the crowd and ran over even those who had been injured or shot dead.

For its part, Israel asserted that most of the 109 people who died in Al Nabulsi had been trampled to death by the stampede that generated the arrival of 30 trucks with humanitarian aid.

Some 30,000 Palestinians have died since October 7, when Israel's bombing of Gaza began.