SANTIAGO (Dispatches) --
Chilean President Gabriel Boric has refused to accept the credentials of the new Israeli ambassador, Gil Artzyeli, due to the occupying regime’s killing of Palestinians.
Artzyeli had been scheduled to present his credentials to Boric as a formality, but the Chilean government informed him that the ceremony had been cancelled, before he was instructed to leave.
According to Ynet News, the decision was made “because of Israel killing children” in the recent escalation in the West Bank and increased military activity of the Zionist regime against the Palestinians.
On Thursday, occupation forces martyred yet another Palestinian boy in a dawn raid. Seventeen-year-old Uday Trad Salah was martyred when Israeli troops stormed the town of Kafr Dan in the Jenin district, and shot him in the head.
Salah was one of three Palestinians to be shot. He was declared dead at the scene. The Palestinian ministry of health said Salah’s killing raised the number of Palestinians martyred this year by the occupying regime of Israel to 149, 34 of whom were in Jenin.
Overnight raids by the Zionist military are a near-daily practice in the occupied West Bank. The occupying regime of Israel claims that they are essential for intelligence purposes, but rights groups have slammed the practice, insisting that the goal is to oppress and intimidate the Palestinian population and increase regime control.
Like military checkpoints and the illegal Separation Wall, insist critics, the raids are part of the DNA of the apartheid regime.
The ceremony in which the new Israeli ambassador is expected to present his credentials has reportedly been pushed back to next month.
Chile is home to some half a million Palestinian immigrants, most of whom are Christian.
Boric, who became President last year, is a known supporter of BDS, after he campaigned for a boycott of goods, services and products from illegal Israeli settlements.