(Bogotá) The Colombian government announced Thursday that the country would welcome and provide medical care to Palestinian children injured as a result of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas.
“We have made the decision to provide humanitarian support to Palestinian children who will travel with their families to Colombia for treatment,” announced Deputy Minister of Multilateral Affairs Elizabeth Taylor Jay after a meeting with the President. Gustavo Petro in Stockholm, where he is on a state visit.
She did not specify how many children would be taken into care, when they might arrive, or how they would manage to leave the Gaza Strip.
“We are counting on the support of the Colombian military hospital,” she assured, highlighting the country’s “expertise” in healthcare.
Elected in 2022 as the first left-wing president in the history of Colombia, Mr. Petro has strongly criticized, on several occasions, the war waged by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
PHOTO RAUL ARBOLEDA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Gustavo Petro
In May, he announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Israel and described the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “genocidal” in its conduct of the war in Gaza. He also put an end to the purchase of weapons manufactured by Israel, one of the main suppliers of the country’s security forces.
On Saturday, he announced the upcoming suspension of coal exports from his country to Israel as long as the war continues.
The war in the Gaza Strip was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented attack by Hamas in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count. established from official Israeli data.
In response, the Israeli army launched an offensive that left 37,232 people dead in the Palestinian territory, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.