Colombian President Gustavo Petro speaks at the International Workers’ Day march in Bogota, Colombia, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Petro on Wednesday described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” and announced his government would end diplomatic relations with Israel effective Thursday.
| Photo Credit: AP

Colombia has become the latest Latin American country to announce it will break diplomatic relations with Israel over its military campaign in Gaza, but the repercussions for the South American nation could be broader than for other countries due to longstanding bilateral agreements over security matters.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” and announced his government would end diplomatic relations with Israel effective Thursday.

But he did not address how his decision could affect Colombia’s military, which uses Israeli-built warplanes and machine guns to fight drug cartels and rebel groups, and a free trade agreement between both countries that went into effect in 2020.

Also in the region, Bolivia and Belize have also severed diplomatic relations with Israel over the Israel-Hamas war.

WHY IS SECURITY COOPERATION BETWEEN COLOMBIA AND ISRAEL IMPORTANT?

Colombia and Israel have signed dozens of agreements on wide-ranging issues, including education and trade, since they established diplomatic relations in 1957. But nothing links them closer than military contracts.

Colombia’s fighter jets are all Israeli-built. The more than 20 Kfir Israeli-made fighter jets were used by its air force in numerous attacks on remote guerrilla camps that debilitated the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The attacks helped push the rebel group into peace talks that resulted in its disarmament in 2016.

But the fleet, purchased in the late 1980s, is aging and requires maintenance, which can only be carried out by an Israeli firm. Manufacturers in France, Sweden and the United States have approached Colombia’s government with replacement options, but the spending priorities of Petro’s administration are elsewhere.

Colombia’s military also uses Galil rifles, which were designed in Israel and for which Colombia acquired the rights to manufacture and sell. Israel also assists the South American country with its cybersecurity needs.

WILL PETRO’S ANNOUNCEMENT AFFECT COLOMBIA’S MILITARY-RELATED CONTRACTS WITH ISRAEL?

It remains unclear.

Colombia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday in a statement that “all communications related to this announcement will be made through established official channels and will not be public”.

The Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, while the Israeli Embassy in Bogota declined to address the issue.

However, a day before Mr. Petro announced his decision, Colombian Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez told lawmakers that no new contracts will be signed with Israel, though existing ones will be fulfilled, including those for maintenance for the Kfir fighters and one for missile systems.

Mr. Velasquez said the government has established a “transition” committee that would seek to “diversify” suppliers to avoid depending on Israel. He added that one of the possibilities under consideration is the development of a rifle by the Colombian military industry to replace the Galil.

Security cooperation has been at the centre of tensions between the two countries. Israel said in October that it would halt security exports to Colombia after Mr. Petro refused to condemn Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war and compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to those of Nazi Germany. In February, Petro announced the suspension of arms purchases from Israel.

For retired Gen. Guillermo León, former commander of the Colombian air force, the country’s military capabilities will be affected if Mr. Petro’s administration breaks its contract obligations or even if it complies with them but refuses to sign new ones.

“At the end of the year, maintenance and spare parts run out, and from then on, the fleet would rapidly enter a condition where we would no longer have the means to sustain it,” he told AP.

“This year, three aircraft were withdrawn from service due to compliance with their useful life cycle.”

WHAT IS THE TRADE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES?

A free trade agreement between Colombia and Israel went into effect in August 2020. Israel now buys 1% of Colombia’s total exports, which include coal, coffee and flowers.

According to Colombia’s Ministry of Commerce, exports to Israel last year totalled $499 million, which represents a drop of 53% from 2022.

Colombia’s imports from Israel include electrical equipment, plastics and fertilizers.

Neither government has explained whether the diplomatic feud will affect the trade agreement.

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, right, with Iran’s FM Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Syria has avoided getting embroiled in the Gaza war, experts said, despite a strike on Iran’s Damascus consulate, blamed on Israel, that threatened to ignite a regional conflagration.

The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is seeking to strike a delicate balancing act between Russia and Iran, which have propped it up during 13 years of civil war and helped it reclaim lost territory.

Syria is part of the so-called Axis of Resistance — an alliance of Iran-backed groups that has launched attacks on the Islamic republic’s arch-foe Israel or its alleged assets since October. But its other main ally Russia maintains diplomatic ties with Israel and has pushed for stability in Syria’s south, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

‘Clear warning’

“The Israelis clearly warned Assad that if Syria was used against them they would destroy his regime,” said a Western diplomat who requested anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the media. “Russia and the United Arab Emirates have urged (Mr. Assad) to stay away from the conflict,” said Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute.

Last year, Syria returned to the Arab fold, seeking better ties with wealthy Gulf states, in hopes they can help fund reconstruction — although Western sanctions are likely to deter investment. Syria appears to have heeded Russia and the UAE’s call, and its border with the Golan Heights remains relatively calm despite a handful of strikes launched by Hezbollah-allied fighters.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor says that since the start of the Gaza war only 26 rocket attacks from Syria have targeted the Golan. “Assad hopes the Arabs and the West will compensate him for his restraint, and the Russians are pushing him towards this path,” he said.

Image used for representative purpose only.
| Photo Credit: AP

Yemen’s Houthis said on April 27 their missiles hit the Andromeda Star oil tanker in the Red Sea, as they continue attacking commercial ships in the area in a show of support for Palestinians fighting Israel in the Gaza war.

The ship’s master reported damage to the vessel, British maritime security firm Ambrey said.

Houthi spokesman Yahya Sarea said the Panama-flagged ship was British-owned, but shipping data shows it was recently sold, according to LSEG data and Ambrey. Its current owner is Seychelles-registered. The tanker is engaged in Russia-linked trade. It was en route from Primorsk, Russia, to Vadinar, India, Ambrey said.

Also read: How has Red Sea trouble impacted India? | Explained

The Red Sea crisis

Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched repeated drone and missile strikes in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden since November, forcing shippers to re-route cargo to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa and stoking fears the Israel-Hamas war could spread and destabilize the Middle East.

The attack on the Andromeda Star comes after a brief pause in the Houthis’ campaign that targets ships with ties to Israel, the United States and Britain.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier sailed out of the Red Sea via the Suez Canal on April 26 after assisting a U.S.-led coalition to protect commercial shipping. The Houthis on Friday said they downed an American MQ-9 drone in airspace of Yemen’s Saada province.

Humanitarian aid parcels attached to parachutes are airdropped from a military aircraft over the Gaza Strip on March 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far: As Israel’s war on Gaza is reaching its sixth month, the Palestinian enclave has become the world’s “largest open-air graveyard”, as the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell put it. The U.N. has warned that a famine in the tiny strip of land with 2.3 million people is “imminent”. Despite growing international calls for a ceasefire, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows that it would continue its military operation until “Hamas is dismantled”.

What is the situation in Gaza?

The war, which started after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel in which at least 1,200 people were killed, has already destroyed much of Gaza and pushed most of the enclave’s population to the southern town of Rafah. According to Gaza’s health authorities, the over five months of Israeli attacks has killed at least 32,000 Palestinians, a vast majority of them women and children. More than 74,000 people have been injured. Gaza lacks enough hospitals, medical professionals, medicines, clean water and other healthcare facilities to treat the wounded. “We see patients trying to recover from life-saving surgeries and losses of limbs, or sick with cancer or diabetes, mothers who have just given birth, or newborn babies, all suffering from hunger and the diseases that stalk it,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Most of the internally displaced people, roughly two million, are living in make-shift camps in the south. According to the UN, at the schools that shelter refugees, each toilet and shower are shared by hundreds of people. Diseases associated with poor sanitation such as hepatitis A, diarrhoea and other infections are rampant. As per the latest report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the situation in Gaza is “catastrophic”. Before the war, there was enough food in Gaza to feed its population and malnutrition was rare. Now, “over a million people are expected to face catastrophic hunger unless significantly more food is allowed to enter Gaza,” WHO Director- General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Why is there a severe hunger crisis?

The IPC report states that Gaza is now experiencing the most severe hunger crisis anywhere in the world. If before October 7, 0.8% of children under five were acutely malnourished, that figure went up to 12.4% to 16.5% in February. Gaza needs an immediate increase in supplies of food, water and other essential supplies, it said. Children are dying from the combined effects of malnutrition and disease. And the situation has gradually worsened over the past five months. If the percentage of Gaza’s population experiencing famine was roughly 30% in February, it went up to 50% by mid-March. In northern Gaza alone, at least 27 Palestinians, mostly children, have died due to malnutrition and dehydration, according to authorities. The north, where around 3,00,000 people are still living, has been mostly cut off from supplies as Israel has sealed off the border (except one checkpoint that was opened). Most of the aid that enters Gaza passes through two checkpoints in the south.

Experts usually look at three criteria to determine a famine — extreme lack of access to food, high levels of acute malnutrition and child deaths. Northern Gaza is already facing extreme lack of access to food and malnutrition levels and child deaths are steadily on the rise, which prompted the U.N. and several global powers to issue urgent calls for a ceasefire and more supplies for Gaza’s population.

What led Gaza to the brink?

Before October 7, around 600 trucks entered Gaza daily, of which roughly 150 carried food. Since then, Gaza’s economy has been destroyed by the war. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, half of croplands in the north, the breadbasket of the Strip, had been damaged in the war. Israel’s incessant bombing has also damaged Gaza city’s port, which practically destroyed the fishing sector, a major source of income for Gazans. Government institutions are not working and construction and other activities came to a grinding halt. This pushed almost all of the population to be dependent on aid, which means the demand for supplies went up many times. But the average number of trucks entering Gaza has come down from 600 in October to 200 today, according to the U.N., which accentuated the crisis that was already unfolding because of the destruction of Gaza’s economy. In February-end, Israel forces opened fire at a crowd that had gathered near an aid convoy, triggering a stampede and killing over 100 Palestinians.

To help alleviate the crisis, the U.S. and some European and Arab countries ramped up airdrops on Gaza. In one incident, a pallet crashed on to people waiting for food as its parachute failed to open, crushing at least five to death. As the crisis worsened with Israel’s refusal to let more aid into the enclave, World Central Kitchen, a charity, sent supplies via the sea. The U.S. is planning to build a pier on the coast of Gaza to send aid, but it will take months for this plan to be operational. The U.N. said last week that Israel’s refusal to let more aid in could be tantamount to using starvation as a “weapon of war”. “The situation of hunger, starvation and famine is a result of Israel’s extensive restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid and commercial goods,” said U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Turk.

Is there a solution in the offing?

Various U.N. agencies have made it clear that to quickly improve the situation, the war should be brought to an end. Gaza is going through its worst humanitarian tragedy. Its economy has been destroyed; population battered; aid supplies have fallen; and even the limited quantities of aid that reach the enclave are not being distributed properly because of hurdles that were created by ongoing fighting. The U.N., which also lost over 100 employees, is understaffed and U.N. workers are also starving.

Israel allies in the West have acknowledged the seriousness of the situation. Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, said last week that all of Gaza’s population “are experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity”. But their solution to the crisis is to find alternative ways to ramp up supplies without forcing Israel to open the border, which is unlikely to alleviate the crisis. What Gaza needs is an immediate ceasefire. But after over five months of fighting, Israel has barely achieved its declared objectives such as freeing hostages or dismantling Hamas. Negotiations are ongoing under the mediation of Qatar, Egypt and the U.S., but Israel and Hamas have not reached an agreement. Israel appears to be ready for a short-term pause in fighting in return for the release of hostages, but Hamas seeks a lasting ceasefire and has also demanded the release of some high-profile Palestinian prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah leader who has been in Israeli jails for over two decades. As both sides reach no common ground, Israel, which continues to get weapons from the U.S., continues the war, for now.

New York:

India is committed to support a two-state solution where the Palestinian people are able to live freely in an independent country, with due regard to the security needs of Israel, India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ruchira Kamboj has said.

Delivering an address at the United Nations General Assembly Meeting on the Use of Veto on Monday, Ms Kamboj said that India’s position on the conflict has been clear and has been stated on several occasions.

“Only a Two-State solution, achieved through direct and meaningful negotiations between both sides on final status issues, will deliver an enduring peace. India is committed to support a Two-State solution where the Palestinian people are able to live freely in an independent country within secure borders, with due regard to the security needs of Israel,” Ms Kamboj said.

Urging for immediate de-escalation, India’s Permanent envoy said, “In order to arrive at a lasting solution, we urge for immediate de-escalation, eschewing violence, release of all hostages, avoiding provocative and escalatory actions, and to work towards creating conditions for an early resumption of direct peace negotiations.”

“India’s position on the conflict has been clear and has been stated on several occasions by our leadership…the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has led to large scale loss of civilian lives, especially women and children. As I mentioned before, this has also resulted in an alarming humanitarian crisis. This is clearly unacceptable,” she strongly noted.

Ms Kamboj said, “We have strongly condemned the deaths of civilians in the conflict. It is critical to prevent further escalation of violence and hostilities. It is imperative to avoid the loss of civilian lives in any conflict situation. International law and international humanitarian law must be respected under all circumstances.”

Reiterating India’s stance on Israel-Hamas war, she stated that the trigger of the conflict were the terror attacks in Israel on October 7 last year. Those attacks require unequivocal condemnation.

“India has a longstanding and uncompromising position against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. There can be no justifications for terrorism and hostage taking. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” Ms Kamboj said.

She called for humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza be scaled up immediately in order to avert a further deterioration in the situation.

“We urge all parties to come together in this endeavour. We welcome the efforts of the UN and international community in this regard. India has provided humanitarian aid to the people of Palestine and will continue to do so,” Ms Kamboj added.

The conflict in Gaza escalated after the October 7 attack by Hamas, where about 2,500 terrorists breached the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip, leading to casualties and the seizure of hostages.

Israel has characterised its Gaza offensive as targeting Hamas’ infrastructure with the goal of eliminating the entire terror group while making efforts to minimize civilian casualties.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has time and again, made it clear that Israel would not agree to a ceasefire, and has noted that calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas.

Earlier on February 26, CNN reported that Hamas backed off some key demands in the negotiations for a hostage deal and paused the fighting in Gaza after Israeli said that its position was “delusional”.

It brought the negotiating parties closer to an initial agreement that could halt the fighting and see a group of Israeli hostages released, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

Following the meeting held in Paris between the US, Egyptian, and Israeli intelligence chiefs and the Qatari prime minister, a senior Biden administration official said, “The major obstacles have been resolved in terms of Hamas insisting on a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and an end to the war,” CNN reported.

“Hamas’ requirements for the number of Palestinians (prisoners that) would have to be freed have declined,” the official added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A file photo og External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar
| Photo Credit: ANI

Underling that the conflict in Gaza is of “great concern”, India on February 26 said the humanitarian crisis arising from conflicts required a sustainable solution that gives immediate relief to those most affected.

Addressing the 55th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that terrorism and hostage-taking are not acceptable and hoped that the conflict does not spread within or beyond the region.

India strongly condemned the terror attack by Hamas on October 7 last year.

“At the same time, we must be clear that terrorism and hostage-taking are unacceptable,” he said in his address via video link from New Delhi. He said that international humanitarian law must always be respected.

Editorial: Balancing policy: On Israel, Palestine and India’s line

“It is vital that the conflict does not spread within or beyond the region,” he said, adding that the efforts must also focus on seeking a two-state solution where Palestinian people can live within Israelis.

The two-state solution

Speaking at an interactive session at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, Mr. Jaishankar had highlighted India’s long-held position on the Palestine issue.

“Certainly India has long believed in a two-state solution. We have maintained that position for many decades and, I think, today many more countries in the world feel not just that the two-state solution is necessary, but it is more urgent than it was before,” he said.

Israel has stepped up its military offensive in Gaza as part of its retaliation to the unprecedented attack on Israeli cities by Hamas militants on October 7.

Hamas killed around 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped more than 220 others some of whom were released during a brief ceasefire.

Nearly 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza in the Israeli offensive, according to authorities there.

India has been calling for de-escalation of the situation and creating conditions for an early resumption of direct peace negotiations towards a two-state solution to the Palestine issue.