BOGOTA: Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday his country will sever diplomatic ties with Israel, whose leader he described as “genocidal” over its war in Gaza.
“Tomorrow (Thursday) diplomatic relations with the state of Israel will be severed... for having a genocidal president,” Petro, a harsh critic of the devastating war against Hamas, told a May Day rally in Bogota.
Petro has taken a critical stance on the Gaza assault that followed an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 — which resulted in the deaths of some 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
In October, just days after the start of the war, Israel said it was “halting security exports” to Colombia after Petro accused Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of using language about the people of Gaza similar to what the “Nazis said of the Jews.”
Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, has also asserted that “democratic peoples cannot allow Nazism to reestablish itself in international politics.”
In February, Petro suspended Israeli weapons purchases after dozens of people died in a scramble for food aid in the war-torn Palestinian territory — an event he said “is called genocide and recalls the Holocaust.”
In the October attack, Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages, 129 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 Israel says are presumed dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,568 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

LONDON: Students in the UK are launching a fresh round of demonstrations against the war in Gaza.

The latest protests were expected to begin on Wednesday on the campuses of at least six British universities, including Sheffield, Bristol, Leeds and Newcastle, The Guardian newspaper reported. They come at a time when authorities in the US are violently cracking down on similar demonstrations.

The British students are demanding that their universities divest from arms companies that supply weapons to Israel, and in some cases that they sever all academic ties with Israeli institutions.

In Britain, regular mass public marches in London and other cities have attracted most of the attention surrounding the pro-Palestinian protest movement, with little attention so far paid to demonstrations at universities.

However, recent events in the US, including massive protests at Columbia University in New York, have encouraged student demonstrators in Britain to ramp up their efforts.

A coalition of “staff, students and alumni” at Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam universities have established an encampment in solidarity with the Palestinian people, as part of a group calling itself the Sheffield Campus Coalition for Palestine. This week, students are expected to stage walkouts from lectures and take part in a demonstration in Sheffield.

Similar activities are expected in Newcastle, organized by a group called Newcastle Apartheid off Campus. More than 40 students at the city’s university reportedly have set up an encampment on campus and planned to stage a rally on Wednesday. Organizers said students are protesting against Newcastle University’s partnership with defense firm Leonardo SpA, which produces the laser guidance system for the F-35 jets that have been used by the Israeli military in Gaza.

They added: “Although the student union has passed motions with 95 percent of people in favor of calling for the university to end its ties with Leonardo, and multiple ‘Leonardo off Campus’ protests on its campus, it is clear that the university has not listened to students’ concerns.”

Students in Leeds and Bristol are involved in similar activities, including rallies and encampments.

A spokesperson for Universities UK, which represents 142 academic institutions, said: “Universities are monitoring the latest news on campus protests in the US and Canada.

“As with any high-profile issue, universities work hard to strike the right balance between ensuring the safety of all students and staff, including preventing harassment, and supporting lawful free speech on campus. We continue to meet regularly to discuss the latest position with university leaders.”