"Tomorrow (Thursday) diplomatic relations with the State of Israel will be severed because it has a genocidal government, a president," the Colombian President told thousands of supporters in Bogota on Wednesday, on the occasion of 1 May.

"We cannot go back to the days of genocide, the days of exterminating an entire people," the Colombian President added.  "If Palestine dies, humanity dies," Petro said, drawing loud applause from the crowd.

The Hamas movement expressed its pleasure and said, "We greatly appreciate the position of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, which we consider a victory for the sacrifices of our people and their just cause," and called on other Latin American countries to sever relations with Israel.

Israel accused Gustavo Petro of "rewarding" the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, as Hamas welcomed the news. Gustavo Petro has harshly criticised Israel's war in the Gaza Strip on several occasions, following Hamas' unprecedented attacks in southern Israel on 7 October.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz described Gustavo Petro as "anti-Semitic". "The Colombian President promised to reward the murderers and rapists of Hamas and today he kept his word," Israel Katz wrote on X.

Bolivia, led by a leftist president, and Belize, a small Central American state, had already severed diplomatic relations with Israel over its attack on the Gaza Strip. South Africa, long an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause, recalled all its diplomats from Israel in early November.