MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia severs diplomatic ties with Israel

Bolivia had already broken up with Israel under Evo Morales

Bolivian Deputy Foreign Minister Freddy Mamani Machaca announced Tuesday that the South American country “condemns the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive being carried out in the Gaza Strip” and was thenceforth breaking diplomatic relations with Israel in “repudiation” of such acts. The Bolivian government made no mention of Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks.

The leftwing government of President Luis Arce Catacora thus became the first in Latin America to officially cut ties with Israel since the outbreak of the conflict, although the Israeli ambassador in Bogotá was expelled from Colombia earlier into the ongoing conflict.

Bolivia “has taken the decision to break diplomatic relations with the State of Israel in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive being carried out in the Gaza Strip,” Mamani said during a press conference.

”We are sending this official communication to the State of Israel, in which we make our decision (...) to break diplomatic relations known,“ added Minister of the Presidency Maria Nela Prada during the same conference while announcing that humanitarian aid was to be sent to the Gaza Strip.

”We demand the cessation of the attacks“ in the Gaza Strip ”which have so far caused thousands of civilian fatalities and the forced displacement of Palestinians,“ she also stressed.

Prada also said that President Luis Arce Catacora held a meeting with Palestinian Ambassador Mahmoud Elalwani, to whom he expressed his solidarity. Arce was also said to have favored that Palestine ”exercise its right to self-determination to its territory without illegal occupations and consolidate its own free and independent state.“

Also Tuesday, Bolivia's representative before the United Nations Diego Pary said that by breaking diplomatic relations with Israel, the South American country was ”on the right side of history, on the side of the rights of the Palestinian people.“

Pary described Israel as ”a state disrespectful of life, of peoples, of international law, and of international humanitarian law.“

”Palestinian sisters and brothers, you are not alone, Bolivia is with you, the peoples of the world are with you,” he argued.

In 2009, the Bolivian government of then President Evo Morales (2006-2019) broke diplomatic relations with Israel in response to the attacks on the Gaza Strip, but in February 2020, the transitional government of Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020) agreed to reestablish and strengthen diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In recent days, Morales insisted to the Administration of President Luis Arce that Bolivia break diplomatic relations with Israel.