embassy

Palestinian officials condemn move by Colombia’s new government that marked a major shift after former President Petro had severed ties with Israel.

Colombia has opened its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem, joining a small group of countries in taking the controversial step of backing Israel’s claim to sovereignty in the contested city.

Palestinian officials swiftly denounced the inauguration on Wednesday that came as Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the genocidal war on Gaza, where three years of attacks have killed more than 74,000 people.

The move by the administration of new Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella is a major shift from his left-wing predecessor Gustavo Petro, who in 2024 severed ties with Israel over the war on Gaza.

De la Espriella, who was sworn in in August, has also restored a free trade agreement between Israel and Colombia that Petro terminated.

Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs Omar ‌Bula Escobar said on Wednesday that relations between the two countries “should ⁠never have been broken” and that Bogota was taking “taking a concrete step towards ⁠restoring diplomatic relations”.

“Israel is a strategic partner. It always has been, and from now on, it will be an even stronger one,” he said during a ceremony that marked the embassy’s opening.

The opening made Colombia the 10th country to establish its embassy in Israel in Jerusalem – most countries keep their formal diplomatic missions in Tel Aviv.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar welcomed the move during the ceremony. “This is an important date for the State of Israel. It’s also an important date for the city of Jerusalem,” he said while signing the Colombian embassy’s guest book.

Colombian Ambassador Tania Gilinski said Israel had always been a “strategic partner” and that moving forward it “will be so with even greater determination and strength”.

‘Violation of international law’

The Palestinian Authority condemned Colombia’s embassy move, calling it “a violation of international legitimacy resolutions” that undermines “the international consensus on the legal status of the holy city”.

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also criticised the move as a “violation of international law and relevant international resolutions”.

United States President Donald Trump moved the US embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem during his first term in 2018, angering Palestinians and sparking international condemnation. Previous US presidents, as well as nearly every other country, refrained from opening embassies in Jerusalem, arguing that the city’s final status should first be resolved in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

The status of Jerusalem remains one of the core unresolved issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Israel claiming the undivided city as its capital while Palestinians view occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and annexed it in 1967, in a move not recognised by the vast majority of the international community.

Since Trump relocated the US embassy to Jerusalem, only a handful of small, US-aligned countries have followed suit, namely Fiji, Guatemala, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay and Nauru. Kosovo and Somaliland, which are not member-states of the United Nations, have also opened what they consider their embassies in Jerusalem.

Colombian President Abelardo De la Espriella had promised closer ties with Israel on the campaign trail.

Israel has announced that Colombia will open an embassy in Jerusalem, becoming the latest country to establish a diplomatic mission in the disputed city claimed as a capital by Israelis and Palestinians. Most countries have their embassies in Israel in Tel Aviv.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Thursday the Latin American country’s embassy would open next week as he touted expanding relations with the region.

“Next Wednesday, we are going to inaugurate … the Colombian embassy,” Saar told attendees at a conference in Jerusalem.

An official at the Colombian Foreign Ministry in Bogota told AFP news agency the country’s Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar would travel to Jerusalem on Sunday ahead of the opening.

Colombian President Abelardo De la Espriella, who was sworn in as president in August, promised close relations with Israel during his election campaign. When he came into office, he restored diplomatic ties between Colombia and Israel. Colombia had previously severed ties with the country over Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

The announcement comes as a small but growing list of countries has opted to route their diplomatic ties with Israel through Jerusalem.

Since 2018, the US, Guatemala, Paraguay, Kosovo, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Nauru and Somaliland, which has been recognised as an independent entity only by Israel, have opened embassies in the city.

Other countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel have located their embassies in Tel Aviv, as Jerusalem is not recognised by the international community as Israel’s capital.

“We will work hard because this is the diplomatic battle over the truth. And the truth is, Jerusalem was always the capital of one nation,” Saar said, dismissing Palestinian claims to the capital.

The Israeli minister said the Democratic Republic of the Congo would open its embassy in Jerusalem “very soon” and hinted at another opening.

“I think that with the possible results in Brazil, they might have the same move,” he said after right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro won the first round in the country’s presidential election.

Protesters in Colombia took to the streets of Bogota on Wednesday to rally against the new far-right government’s policy towards Israel, including the decision to open the Jerusalem embassy.

“When diplomatic relations with Israel were broken off, the message was that we would not be a nation complicit in their atrocities,” Nicolas Isaza, who took part in the protest, told Al Jazeera.

“Today our government is no longer drawing a line against the atrocities being committed in Palestine,” he added.