President Gustavo Petro said that Colombia’s government will suspend arms imports from opponents of a ceasefire between Israel’s armed forces and paramilitaries from Palestine.
“Colombia will not buy weapons from manufacturing countries that voted against or abstained from voting on the resolution that ordered to ceasefire in Gaza” at a United Nations’ General Assembly meeting in late October, said Petro on social media platform X.
The president additionally announced that Colombia’s ambassador to the UN will sponsor a resolution to grant full statehood to Palestine.
Petro made the announcements in response to the “carnage” at the Al-Shifa hospital in the occupied Gaza Strip where medics were forced to remove newborn babies from incubators after running out of fuel.
The area around the hospital has become a battleground where Israeli armed forces are trying to combat armed fighters of Palestinian paramilitary force Hamas, according to the UN.
Petro’s unilateral arms embargo would affect imports from the United States, which voted against a ceasefire on October 27.
Major arms manufacturers like Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom would also be barred from exporting arms to Colombia for their failure to support a ceasefire.
Israel’s foreign ministry had already suspended arms imports to Colombia because of the president’s vocal opposition to alleged war crimes in Gaza.
More than 11,100 people have been killed in bombardments and combat in Gaza since October 7 when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in an attack on southern Israel.
Amnesty International said the Israeli attacks caused an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”
According to Human Rights Watch, Israel’s “apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities, personnel and transport…” “should be investigated as war crimes.”
Israel’s ambassador to Bogota, Gali Dagan, did not directly respond to Petro’s accusations but insisted that “we are doing everything possible to minimize damage done to civilians” despite evidence to the contrary.
