[News] In Colombia, The Hague Group Charges Israel With Genocide

Tue Jul 15 19:30:03 EDT 2025

A multilateral coalition arrived to Bogotá to take action to stop 
Israel’s genocide, despite U.S. condemnation and sanctions against the 
UN and international courts.
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  In Colombia, The Hague Group Charges Israel With Genocide
  <https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2510348&post_id=168421540&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=lvppb&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozNjc1MTU4MywicG9zdF9pZCI6MTY4NDIxNTQwLCJpYXQiOjE3NTI2MTY5MTQsImV4cCI6MTc1NTIwODkxNCwiaXNzIjoicHViLTI1MTAzNDgiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.YdNmve1X2o8lO1R9-swYYPM1gZi6U_OJw6-osoCJ1Sk>

      A multilateral coalition arrived to Bogotá to take action to stop
      Israel’s genocide, despite U.S. condemnation and sanctions against
      the UN and international courts.

Jose Olivares <https://substack.com/@joseolivares>

Jul 15, 2025

<https://substack.com/@joseolivares>

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READ IN APP 
<https://open.substack.com/pub/dropsitenews/p/israel-genocide-united-states-the-hague-group-colombia-international-law-united-nations?utm_source=email&redirect=app-store&utm_campaign=email-read-in-app> 

<https://substack.com/redirect/c0831c71-36a2-4535-97be-3b417d30de02?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>Convened 
by the Hague Group, an Emergency Ministerial Conference on Palestine 
began at the San Carlos Palace in Bogotá, Colombia, on July 15, 2025. 
 From right to left: Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the 
Palestinian Territories; Riyad Mansour, Minister of Palestine; Rosa 
Yolanda Villavicencio, Foreign Minister of Colombia Zane Dangor, Deputy 
Minister of South Africa (Photo by Juancho Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images).

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA—On Tuesday, ministers and officials from over 30 
countries gathered in Bogotá, Colombia to convene The Hague Group, an 
international organization co-chaired by the governments of Colombia and 
South Africa. The two-day conference will discuss steps forward for the 
international community to stop Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

The gathering comes amid heightened aggression from the U.S. government 
against the “emergency conference” and one of its lead speakers—Special 
UN Rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza Francesca Albanese—as Israel 
continues to sabotage negotiations 
<https://substack.com/redirect/ee166b65-0b1d-474c-abdf-304c5a373e12?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>between 
Israel and Hamas.

Dozens of government officials from around the globe took to San Carlos 
Palace, the site of the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 
downtown Bogotá on Tuesday morning. Cameras, mostly from Colombian news 
organizations, pointed to the front of a large salon, with over 
two-dozen flags making up the backdrop for a panel of speakers from 
across the world. The countries represented at the emergency conference 
this week include Algeria, Bolivia, China, Brazil, Iraq, Lebanon, 
Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Spain, Turkey, and Venezuela.

The Hague Group was created last year through the help of Progressive 
International, an organization founded in May 2020 to unite, organize, 
and mobilize progressive forces around the world. The Hague Group is 
pushing for an end to Israel’s offensive, and has organized this week’s 
emergency conference. Other organizations, including international human 
rights groups and organizations advocating for Palestinian rights, are 
present such as the Hind Rajab Foundation. Notably, Qatar and Egypt, 
which are overseeing negotiations between Hamas and the Israeli 
government, are in attendance.

“There is nothing to negotiate about. Israel needs to withdraw from Gaza 
totally and unconditionally,” Albanese told Drop Site News during a 
press conference on Tuesday afternoon when asked about the negotiations 
between Hamas and Israel. “This is the first thing. And then Israel owes 
huge reparations to Palestinians for what it has done,” she added.

The conference marks an inflection point for how some states will 
address the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians by Israeli military 
forces. Some governments and officials are divided in their approach to 
pressure Israel, with some officials more hesitant than others on 
whether to call for the severance of diplomatic relations and whether to 
place sanctions on Israel.

Some government officials will be meeting in private during the week for 
high-level negotiations. Government officials from several countries 
will all be meeting in closed-door sessions on Tuesday to discuss the 
Hague Group’s proposed measures. It is unclear what those proposed 
measures are, but they are likely to be announced on Wednesday morning 
during the closing ceremony. In Tuesday’s closed-door meetings, Albanese 
presented her expertise to international officials.

“The Bogotá conference will go down as the moment in history that states 
finally stood up to do the right thing,” Albanese had said in the 
lead-up to the conference. She called the formation of The Hague Group 
the “most significant political development of the last 20 months.”

During Tuesday morning’s opening event, various officials spoke, calling 
for an end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza. Colombia’s foreign minister, 
Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio, said during her morning address that 
Israel’s attacks constitute an unequivocal “genocide.”

The meeting comes amid heightened aggression by the U.S. government 
toward the Hague Group, and the escalation of diplomatic tension between 
the U.S. and Colombia.

In an official statement to Drop Site, the U.S. State Department said it 
strongly opposed the Hague Group’s meeting in Colombia.

“The United States strongly opposes efforts by so-called ‘multilateral 
blocs’ to weaponize international law as a tool to advance radical 
anti-Western agendas,” a State Department official said. “The so-called 
Hague Group—whose leading voices are South Africa and Cuba, 
authoritarian and communist regimes, respectively, with deeply troubling 
human rights records—seeks to undermine the sovereignty of democratic 
nations by isolating and attempting to delegitimate Israel, 
transparently laying the groundwork for targeting the United States, our 
military, and our allies.”

The U.S. will “aggressively defend our interests, our military, and our 
allies, including Israel, from such coordinated legal and diplomatic 
warfare. We urge our friends to stand with us in this critical 
endeavor.” The Trump administration withdrew the U.S. from the UN Human 
Rights Council earlier this year.

Annelle Sheline, a former foreign affairs officer at the State 
Department who resigned in March 2024 over the slaughter in Gaza, is 
attending the week’s proceedings. In response to the attempt by the US 
State Department to bully participating countries at the emergency 
meeting of the Hague Group, she told Drop Site, “These are sovereign 
states who have every right to uphold their obligations as UN members, 
including under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of 
the Crime of Genocide.” She added, “This is not the weaponization of 
international law. This is the application of international law.”

Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions on 
Francesca Albanese, who has strongly condemned Israel’s U.S.-backed 
military assault. Rubio said 
<https://substack.com/redirect/938f1d5e-c499-4181-ad60-7b0aa01ff1a5?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>that 
the sanctions on Albanese are due to her “illegitimate and shameful 
efforts” to prompt International Criminal Court action against U.S. and 
Israeli officials, companies, and executives. “Albanese’s campaign of 
political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will 
no longer be tolerated,” he added.

During the press conference, Albanese stressed that nations should sever 
ties with Israel and place sanctions on Israel. Regarding the sanctions 
placed on her by Marco Rubio: “it’s not about me. It’s about the 
Palestinian people,” saying that it is symbolic. Although she is shaken 
by them, she said, the sanctions are representative of the ongoing war 
and the US’s complicity

“There is hope that these two days will move all present to work 
together to take concrete measures to end the genocide in Gaza and, 
hopefully, end the erasure of the Palestinians,” Albanese said during 
her morning address at the opening of the emergency conference, calling 
for states to take significant steps forward to address the genocide.

Albanese called for each state to “immediately review and suspend all 
ties with Israel,” and called on governments to review the “military, 
strategic, political, diplomatic, economic relations—both imports and 
exports” with Israel and to “make sure that their private sector, 
insurers, banks, pension funds, universities, and other goods and 
services providers in the supply chains do the same.” Albanese has 
recently issued a report naming U.S. companies as complicit in Israel’s war.

“These ties must be terminated as a matter of urgency,” Albanese added. 
“Let’s be clear: I mean cutting ties with Israel, as a whole.”

    *Colombia: Host Against Genocide*

That the emergency conference is taking place in Colombia is significant 
and symbolic. Last year, Colombian president Gustavo Petro cut 
diplomatic ties with Israel, due to the genocide in Gaza. Petro, an 
outspoken critic of Israel and the U.S., had faced mounting pressure by 
the U.S. government as well.

During Trump’s first weeks in office, tensions escalated between both 
governments when Colombia refused to accept a group of deportees from 
the U.S., who were shackled and being transported in a military plane. 
Trump and Petro engaged in a loud, public spat on social media, leading 
to threats of tariffs leveled by both countries.

The brief flare-up was not a blip in U.S.-Colombian relations. In recent 
weeks, tensions have radically escalated. In early July, the U.S. and 
Colombian governments both recalled their respective ambassadors, due to 
escalating tensions in both countries.

According to reporting from El Pais 
<https://substack.com/redirect/8d3ec44b-795d-4472-b22e-cb0dd5a9eaf5?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>, 
former Colombian Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva, who had a public falling 
out with president Petro after he was investigated for allegations of 
corruption, allegedly sought help from U.S. Republicans to oust Petro. 
Levya was unsuccessful. In April, Leyva publicly accused Petro of being 
addicted to drugs.

After the allegations of the attempted ouster surfaced, Petro publicly 
criticized Leyva and the U.S. government. In turn, the U.S. recalled its 
top diplomat for “urgent consultations,” accusing Petro of promoting 
“baseless and reprehensible” statements. Petro then followed suit and 
recalled the U.S. ambassador.

The Colombian foreign minister opened Tuesday’s event. “Colombia has 
positioned itself without ambiguity: what is happening in Gaza is a 
genocide,” Villavicencio said on Tuesday morning. “That is why this 
meeting seeks to go beyond declarations. We seek to support 
investigations by the International Criminal Court, demand commitment by 
the International Court of Justice, propose specific sanctions, and 
mobilize every instrument that International Law allows.”

    *International Representation*

Other speakers on Tuesday morning included Riyad Mansour, the 
Palestinian ambassador and permanent observer of Palestine to the UN; 
Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, the Executive Director of The Hague Group; 
Zane Dangor, the Director-General of the Department of International 
Relations and Cooperation of South Africa; and Dr Thaer Ahmad, a 
Palestinian-American doctor, who has visited Gaza to treat victims.

Dr. Ahmad spoke openly about the devastation he observed, while working 
at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and Al Aqsa hospital in Deir El Balah 
last year. “First responders and paramedics are prevented from doing 
their job or sometimes killed in the line of duty,” Dr. Ahmad said. 
“Starvation and water is being used as a weapon of war.”

Mansour also addressed the conference’s opening. “The core values we 
believed humanity agreed were universal are shattered—blown to pieces, 
like the tens of thousands of starved, murdered, and injured civilians 
in Palestine,” Mansour said. “Accountability alone is not enough for 
justice to prevail in Palestine. We must deconstruct the regime of 
illegal colonial occupation and apartheid to ensure that the current 
horrifying crimes do not repeat. The best and most assured way to 
protect the Palestinian people from more crimes is their freedom.”

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