SANTIAGO (Dispatches) – Chile’s President Gabriel Boric says that he will step up pressure against the Zionist regime over its war on Gaza among other initiatives during his government’s last nine months in office, Reuters reports.
In a wide-ranging three-hour speech from Congress in the coastal city of Valparaiso that marked his last annual address, Boric also discussed crime, infrastructure, the economy and abortion rights.
In comments that sparked the largest amount of cheers and jeers from opposite sides of Congress, Boric said he will introduce a law to ban imports from what he called “illegally occupied territories” and back efforts by Spain for an arms embargo against the Zionist regime.
Boric, an outspoken critic of Israel, had recently recalled military personnel from Chile’s embassy in the country and summoned the ambassador for questioning.
Meanwhile, the Barbados government is again being urged to sever diplomatic relations with Israel in protest of the killing of civilians in Gaza.
The appeal was made during a solidarity rally held outside the United States Embassy in Wildey, St Michael.
The demonstration, organized by a coalition of advocacy groups, also marked the fifth anniversary of the death of African American George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer in the United States.
Those taking part in the rally condemned global injustices driven by U.S. imperialism while drawing urgent attention to the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.
David Denny, General Secretary of the Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration, issued a direct call to Prime Minister Mia Mottley and her administration.
“We call on the government of Barbados to end all forms of diplomatic relations with Israel because of its aggressive stance towards the people of Palestine,” he said.
“We are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine, who are being murdered every day by Israel, with the full support of the United States. That is why we are here next to the United States of America embassy.”
The rally heard repeated condemnations of Israel’s military campaign and its impact on Palestinian civilians.
In a similar development, two former Australian foreign ministers have joined growing calls for sanctions on the Zionist regime for blocking food to starving civilians in Gaza.
Gareth Evans and Bob Carr called for Australia to join the UK, France and Canada in signaling the use of targeted sanctions if the Zionist regime fails to stop its renewed military aggression in the enclave and lift all restrictions on aid, local broadcaster SBS News reported.
The two joined Labor Party lawmaker and former Cabinet minister Ed Husic, who last week urged the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to consider using targeted sanctions against Israel over its actions in blocking aid in Gaza.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has also called for an immediate cessation of the Zionist regime’s aggression on the Gaza Strip during a phone call received from Steve Witkoff, the U.S. president’s special envoy to the Middle East.
Abdelatty said the international community must prioritize the welfare of suffering Palestinians and called for the unfettered delivery of aid to the enclave.
He emphasized that only a political settlement could ensure a just and lasting solution to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.
The West has already lost its credibility by giving the Zionist regime free rein, said Francesca Albanese, a UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement: “If we abandon Gaza … we kill our own credibility in the rest of the world,” Anadolu reports.
Albanese wrote on X: “Tragically, it’s already done: the West has sacrificed its credibility through decades of free passes granted to Israel.”
She added: “Millions in the West—for whom liberte, egalite, fraternite are universal values—are suffering. One path remains: sanction Israel and protection force in oPt.”
On Friday, Macron said at the Shangri-la Dialogue, an annual high-level Asia defense summit held in Singapore, “If we abandon Gaza, if we consider Israel to have a free pass, even if we condemn the terrorist attacks, we kill our own credibility in the rest of the world.”