ADDIS ABABA (Dispatches) – The Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia was expelled from an African Union meeting here on Monday after several African countries objected to his participation in a session on the Rwanda genocide.
Israel’s foreign ministry said Avraham Neguise was expelled from the Mandela Hall at the African Union headquarters after other attendees said they would not take part alongside him.
In a statement, the Israeli foreign ministry said they would “take the necessary diplomatic steps with the relevant parties to clarify the seriousness with which we view this incident.”
The participation of the Israeli ambassador was unexpected. Sources said delegations from several African countries objected to his presence, and the meeting was paused until his departure.
The African Union is reportedly conducting an investigation to determine who invited him.
In 2002, after the establishment of the African Union, observer status was granted to non-member countries from outside Africa, totaling 87 countries.
The privileges of observer status include attending African Union meetings and participating in certain discussions, but it does not grant the right to vote.
The first entity granted observer status was the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1973, which enjoys strong support from most African countries.
In recent years, Israel has sought observer status at the African Union to counter Palestinian influence and managed to obtain observer status in 2021.
However, the Zionist regime was later expelled by a decision of African countries due to its violation of the African Union Charter’s conditions for observer membership, citing its continued occupation of Palestinian territories.
The African Union joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in February and has declared that Israel “is committing genocide” against the Palestinian people “and must be prosecuted internationally.”
This is not the first time an Israeli ambassador or diplomat has been removed from an AU meeting.
An Israeli delegation to the African Union summit in Addis Ababa was expelled from the opening ceremony in February 2023. At the time, the Israeli ministry accused South Africa and Algeria of a serious diplomatic violation.
According to the Israeli news website Walla, which first reported the incident, security guards approached the Israeli delegation during the ceremony and demanded that they leave.
Members of the AU remained firm in their rejection of Israel’s presence, considering the ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Though Israel was readmitted as an observer country to the pan-African bloc in 2021, in January 2022, Algerian diplomats introduced a motion to revoke Israel’s newly reinstated observer status.