The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has praised the Nicaraguan government’s decision to break diplomatic relations with Israel in response to the regime’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and escalation of its brutal aggression against Lebanon.
The Gaza-based group, in a statement on Saturday, described the move as “courageous” and a “step towards isolating the fascist Zionist entity.”
It added that the move “criminalizes Israel’s genocidal practices and exposes its widespread violations of the international law and humanitarian norms, which happen with political and military support from Washington and some Western powers.”
Hamas also called on other nations to follow Nicaragua’s lead and take a stand against Israel’s actions.
“As we appreciate the Republic of Nicaragua’s fulfillment of its moral and political obligations towards our Palestinian people and their just cause, we call upon other countries to state their positions clearly towards the unrestrained Zionist violence against our Palestinian people and the peoples of the region,” Hamas said.
The movement also stressed the need for isolation of the Israeli regime, holding its war criminal leaders accountable and standing by Palestinian people in their quest to end the occupation and establish an independent sovereign state.
Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo announced the rupture of diplomatic ties with the Tel Aviv regime on Friday after the Central American nation’s Congress passed a resolution calling for action following the one-year anniversary of the Gaza war.
Murillo, who is President Daniel Ortega’s wife, said her husband instructed the government to sever diplomatic relations with the “fascist” and “genocidal” Israeli regime.
The rupture of diplomatic relations comes at a time when Israel is under growing pressure on the global stage amid a brutal campaign in Gaza and expanding attacks across West Asia, including in Lebanon.
Israel launched the devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to intensified Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 42,175 Palestinians and injured another 98,336 individuals. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.
According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, at least 1,645 people have been killed since Israel escalated attacks on Lebanon in September, while a total of 2,255 have now died after a year of fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.
Nicaragua has twice before cut relations with Israel – once in 2010 under Ortega and also in 1982 under the Sandinista revolutionary government led by Ortega following the country’s 1979 revolution.
Condemnation of Israel’s yearlong war on Gaza is relatively widespread in Latin America, where leaders in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, and Chile have fiercely criticized the Tel Aviv regime’s brutalities in the Palestinian coastal sliver.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro cut diplomatic ties with Israel in May, calling the administration of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “genocidal.”
Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also recalled the country’s ambassador to the occupied territories that same month.