Francesca Albanese addresses emergency conference of the Hague Group on July 15, 2025 in Bogota, Colombia. Photo: Reuters/Luisa González.
In Bogotá, on Tuesday, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, called on all countries to cut ties with the Israeli entity, expressing her opinion that treating the “occupation” of Palestine as normal means supporting the Zionist state’s “illegal presence” in that territory.
“Each state must immediately review and suspend its military, strategic, political, diplomatic, and economic relations with the State of Israel, both imports and exports,” Albanese said during the opening of the Hague Group’s ministerial meeting in the Colombian capital.
The diplomat added that countries must ensure that their private sectors, from banks and pension funds to universities, cut ties with the Israelis, as should service providers in supply chains.
“Treating the occupation as something normal means supporting, aiding, or assisting Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territories,” she said.
Albanese noted that the Israeli colony’s economy is structured to sustain “the occupation, which has now become genocide.”
“It is impossible to separate Israel’s state policies and economy from its former occupation policies and economy. They have been inseparable for decades,” she stressed.
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Colombia, the host of the Hague Group meeting, severed diplomatic relations with the Israeli entity on May 1, 2024, and days later, suspended coal exports to that country in response to the Israeli offensive in Gaza, which Colombian President Gustavo Petro has repeatedly referred to as a “genocide.”
Representatives from more than 30 countries, including Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, Spain, Honduras, Ireland, Mexico, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Venezuela, are participating in the two-day meeting, which began today.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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