Israeli authorities have given until Friday for Venezuela’s diplomatic staff to return to Caracas.Venezuela's head of mission in Tel Aviv and his two colleagues “are declared persona non grata in Israel” said Foreign Ministry official Lior Hayat earlier today. Hayat added that the move is in retaliation of Venezuela’s recent severing of diplomatic ties with isreal.
Venezuela’s government had previously decided to expel Israeli diplomatic officials in retaliation for the Israeli offensive on Gaza. The three-week military operation against Hamas was halted by a recent ceasefire but not before costing the lives of nearly 1300 Palestinians.
In the meantime, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro tried to play some damage control in a televised interview:
Relations between Israel and Venezuela were already tense because of President Chavez's friendly relations with Iran, which backs Hamas and has called for Israel's destruction.Image- AFP (“Palestinians in their damaged apartment building” presumably after the Israeli offensive on Gaza).
In an interview with Venezuelan state television channel VTV, the country's foreign minister Nicolas Maduro denied that the Venezuelan government was anti-Semitic.
Mr. Maduro also denied that his government has relations with Hamas and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the French news agency AFP reports.
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Xinhua, BBC News, Reuters, washingtonpost.com, IHT
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