Colombia moved its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on October 14, joining nine other countries with missions in the disputed city, as President Abelardo de la Espriella reverses his leftist predecessor’s break with Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and his Colombian counterpart Omar Bula Escobar attended the inauguration ceremony.
“Today, we are taking a concrete step toward restoring diplomatic relations between us — relations that should never have been severed. Israel is a strategic partner — it always has been, and from now on, it will be even more so,” Bula Escobar said, according to a readout from Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Sa’ar described the move as “a recognition of the simple political fact that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital” and said Israel and Colombia were entering “the beginning of a golden age” in their relationship.
“I thank my friend, the President of Colombia Abelardo de la Espriella, who told me in Buenos Aires, long before his election: ‘If I am elected President, I will immediately move the Embassy of Colombia to Jerusalem.’ He made a promise, and he kept it,” he wrote on X.
Colombia’s ambassador, Tania Gilinski, said bilateral ties would now move forward with “even greater determination and strength.”
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the opening. In a statement carried by the Wafa news agency, it called the decision “a violation of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions, and an attack on the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people.”
“All measures and decisions aimed at changing the legal and historical status of occupied Jerusalem are null and void and have no legal effect,” the ministry added.
The embassy opening came a day after the two governments formally reinstated their free trade agreement, which former president Gustavo Petro terminated in October 2025.
Petro cut diplomatic relations with Israel in May 2024, accusing it of genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel denies. After Israel intercepted a Gaza-bound aid flotilla and detained two Colombian citizens in October 2025, he expelled the remaining Israeli diplomats and scrapped the trade pact, which dated from 2020.
A fierce critic of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, which followed Hamas’ October 7, 2023 terror attack, Petro had earlier halted military purchases from the Jewish state and, in August 2024, banned thermal coal exports to the country. A 2025 decree later widened that ban by removing exemptions for existing contracts. Before the breakdown, Israel had been one of Colombia’s main suppliers of military hardware, including rifles and fighter jets.
De la Espriella, a right-wing criminal lawyer who defeated Petro’s chosen successor Ivan Cepeda in a June 21 run-off, agreed to a roadmap with Israel in July to revive full diplomatic and economic ties once he took office on August 7.
Since then, his government has recognised Israeli sovereignty over Syria's occupied Golan Heights and Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. In late August, it signed a decree allowing coal shipments to Israel to resume. Carlos Cante, president of Colombia’s National Federation of Coal Producers, has estimated the market at about 3.5mn tonnes a year, worth close to $200mn.
Colombia has also restored visa-free travel with Israel for stays of up to 90 days and, in September, withdrew its intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Bula Escobar told Congress on September 16 that closer cooperation with Israel would bolster Bogota's security and intelligence capacity against drug trafficking, arms smuggling and money laundering.
Besides Colombia, the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Fiji, Somaliland and Nauru have embassies in Jerusalem. Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia operate embassy branches there.
Most governments keep their embassies in Tel Aviv, arguing that the city’s status should be settled in a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, who seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
Washington recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 under the first Trump administration and moved its embassy there in May 2018.