Colombia Again Defies Washington With Gaza Conference

Colombian President Gustavo Petro hosted an international summit this week in which 12 countries announced sanctions on Israel, defying Washington amid heightened tensions between the two countries.

The summit convened 30 nations, mostly from the Global South, in addition to the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, who the Trump administration sanctioned last week for her condemnation of Jerusalem and Washington.

While the measures agreed upon at the conference – which include blocking arms shipments and military supplies – are unlikely to impact Israel's offensive in Gaza, the conference is seen as a symbolic defiance of Washington's Middle East policy by countries that attended.

The summit, which took place between July 15 and 16, was organized by the Hague Group, a bloc of eight countries – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa – which was formed in January to oppose Israel.

Following the summit, the Hague Group published a list of six actions intended to "halt the Gaza genocide."

They included preventing the transit of arms, fuel and supplies destined for Israel's military through their ports and auditing public finances to ensure no funds go to "supporting Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territory."

But even though 30 countries attended the conference, a dozen pledged to enact the measures: Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and South Africa. Two members of the Hague Group, Honduras and Senegal, stopped short of agreeing to the actions.

"Although Petro has been trying to sound the alarm bells about the situation in Palestine for quite some time, [the summit] is unlikely to make a difference in the big picture," said Sergio Guzmán, Director at Colombia Risk Analysis, a Bogotá-based political think tank.

Israel's offensive in Gaza, which followed the October 7 attacks by the Hamas militant group that killed some 1,200 Israelis and took about 250 hostage, has claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Palestinians, over half of them women and children.

Mounting tensions with Washington

While the impact of the conference on Israel's military capacity may be limited, it nevertheless appears to have ruffled some feathers in Washington.

"The United States strongly opposes efforts by so-called 'multilateral blocs' to weaponize international law as a tool to advance radical anti-Western agendas," a State Department spokesperson told Drop Site News in response to the conference.

"The so-called Hague Group—whose leading voices are South Africa and Cuba, authoritarian and communist regimes, respectively, with deeply troubling human rights records—seeks to undermine the sovereignty of democratic nations," it added.

Colombia's decision to host the event comes amid strained relations with Washington.

The two countries recalled their ambassadors in early July after a spat over an alleged coup plot against Petro. Earlier this year too, Trump threatened Colombia with sanctions after Petro rejected a deportation flight carrying Colombian nationals. Fears are also high in Colombia that Washington may decertify Colombia as a counter-narcotics partner due to soaring cocaine production, which would allow a raft of sanctions.

Despite this tense diplomatic context, Petro threw his weight behind the conference, writing in a Guardian column ahead of the event that "governments such as mine cannot afford to remain passive."

"Clearly Petro's attempting to make Colombia relevant globally on this issue that he cares about deeply," Guzmán told The Latin Times.

Petro has consistently criticized Israel's offensive in Gaza, severing diplomatic ties with Israel in May 2024.

Israel's delegation to the UN described the conference as a "moral travesty."

While Petro celebrated the summit as a success, saying "we came to Bogota to make history... and we did," it could deal another blow to Colombia's delicate relationship with its strongest ally.