Israel to boot Venezuelan diplomats?

Israel’s Foreign Ministry is reportedly considering expelling Venezuelan diplomats in retaliation to a similar move from the South American country. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that the government will decide later today whether or not to make the tit-for-tat gesture with Venezuela.

Venezuela’s decision to boot Israeli diplomats was taken hours after Israeli attacks killed over forty people seeking refuge at a Gaza U.N. school. "The Israeli army is cowardly attacking worn-out, innocent people" said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as his country becomes the first to take such actions since the Israeli offensive began in late December. During a visit to a Caracas children hospital, Chavez also added that Israeli military strikes constitute a “Holocaust” against the people in Gaza.

The Israeli army claimed in a statement yesterday that “among the dead in the school were members of the military wing of the Hamas terror organization.” Yet U.N. investigators denied that with one official saying that he was "99.9% certain" there were no Hamas militants in the school.

Several Latin American governments continued to condemn the ongoing violence in the Middle East:

"Mexico condemns the excessive use of force associated with the Israeli army operation in Gaza,” a statement from the Mexican Foreign Ministry said late Tuesday.

It also condemned "the continued launching of mortars into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip"…

The governments of Chile, Nicaragua and Peru have also officially condemned the bombardments.

Image- BBC News (“An Israeli attack on a UN-run school killed more than 40 people who were seeking shelter there from the fighting.”)
Online Sources- BBC News, Bloomberg, CNN, Al Jazeera English, Reuters, PRESS TV