News - World: Colombia has expelled the Israeli regime’s diplomats over Tel Aviv’s aggression targeting an international Gaza-bound aid flotilla, while urging the US president’s imprisonment for Washington’s complicity in the regime’s ongoing genocide in the coastal sliver.

On Thursday, President Gustavo Petro ordered expulsion of the entire Israeli diplomatic delegation from Bogota, a move triggered, among other things, by Israeli forces’ detention of two Colombian activists, who were on board the flotilla.

The detainees have been identified as Manuela Bedoya and Luna Barreto, who were seeking to deliver direly-needed aid to the Gaza Strip as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla – a 50-strong fleet of vessels carrying activists from scores of countries.

The women were nabbed after the flotilla was 150 nautical miles off Gaza’s coastline.

The attack that began on Wednesday saw Israeli navy boats intercepting multiple ships belonging to the fleet, boarding the vessels, and placing crew and accompanying journalists under arrest.

The development took place as the regime continues to weaponize starvation through a near-total siege of the Palestinian territory.

Human rights bodies have denounced the method as a means of maximizing casualties and suffering amid the regime’s October 2023-present war of genocide on Gaza.

Petro warned on X, former Twitter, that the detentions constituted "a new international crime by [Israeli prime minister] Benjamin Netanyahu."

He said the Colombian foreign ministry would file lawsuits, including in Israeli courts, and urged international lawyers to support the Colombian legal team.

Petro also said that "the Free Trade Agreement with Israel is immediately denounced."

Addressing the United Nations Security Council recently, Petro made an unprecedented and daring call for “a strong army of nations that do not accept genocide.”

“We must gather weapons and armies. We must liberate Palestine,” he added.

The US, the Israeli regime’s biggest ally, decided to revoke his visa afterwards, to which Petro responded, “I don’t care.”

Bogota had already severed diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv in May 2024 amid the genocide, but the Thursday move took matters still further by ordering departure of the remaining Israeli diplomatic representatives.

On Wednesday, Petro addressed the US’s unprecedented political, military, and intelligence support for the genocide that has so far claimed the lives of more than 66,100 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Speaking to reporters, he said if US President Donald “Trump keeps being complicit in a genocide, as he is up to today, he deserves nothing but jail, and his military should not obey him.”

The Colombian president also threatened to take legal action through the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Washington and Tel Aviv.

“The US and Israel are not party to the ICC’s Rome Statute, but Colombia is,” he said.

“The Rome Statute defines crimes against humanity, war crimes, and international crimes,” he stated, noting, “Anyone of any nationality judged by those tribunals can be arrested by any country if they pass through.”

Source: Press TV