Bolivia cuts diplomatic ties with Israel over Gaza

July 29th, 2009 Iran approves $280 million loan for BoliviaLA PAZ, Bolivia — Iran's top diplomat in Bolivia says the Islamic republic has approved a $280 million low-interest loan for President Evo Morales' government to use as it sees fit. Gas and oil exploration are possibilities.

May 14th, 2009 Bolivia: Peru ties 'at risk' over refugee decisionLA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivia's president says relations with Peru are at "high risk" after the neighboring nation gave refuge to two more former Bolivian officials accused in the 2003 army killings of dozens of protesters. Evo Morales says his government is considering its response to what he calls a "provocation and an open aggression" by his Peruvian counterpart, Alan Garcia.

February 2nd, 2009 GAZA - Gaza militants fired three rockets into southern Israel overnight, causing no damage or injury, Israel's Arabic radio service reported Tuesday. One Russian-made Grad rocket landed in an empty area in Ashkelon, some 13 km from the Gaza border, the farthest a rocket reached inside Israel since the end of an Israeli offensive on the salient Jan 18, the report quoted an Israeli army spokesman as saying.

February 1st, 2009 GAZA - Israel launched airstrikes Sunday night targeting the tunnels in Rafah in southern Gaza Strip. Witnesses said three bombs were dropped in the border area.

January 27th, 2009 JERUSALEM - Israel has expelled all diplomatic staff from the Venezuelan embassy in response to a similar action by the South American state earlier this month, the Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday. The expulsion order was issued Tuesday, and the Venezuelan diplomats have to leave the Jewish state by Friday, the report quoted foreign ministry spokesman Yossi Levy as saying.

January 17th, 2009 TEHRAN - The presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela were invited to a feast here by Islamic Students Society to celebrate Palestine's victory over Israel in Gaza, IRNA reported Sunday. The feast will be hosted by Tehran University to celebrate the end of the 22-day conflict in Gaza, the ISS said but the agency gave no date.

January 16th, 2009 DOHA/KUWAIT CITY - Leaders attending a summit on the crisis in Gaza Friday urged Arab states to follow the lead of Qatar and Mauritania and suspend ties with Israel in protest against the attack on Gaza. The Qatar meeting was attended by representatives of a number of Arab states, and was also attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and members of Hamas' Damascus-based political bureau.

January 14th, 2009 CARACAS - Venezuela has announced that it was breaking diplomatic relations with Israel 'in the face of the seriousness of the atrocities against the Palestinian people', EFE reported Thursday. In a communique released by the foreign ministry, the government of President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that it would insist 'before the international community that the crimes against humanity committed by (Israel's) leaders be denounced before the International Criminal Court'.

January 13th, 2009 JERUSALEM - A senior Israeli defence official will visit Egypt Wednesday for talks over a possible ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a media report said. Amos Gilad, head of the Diplomatic Security Bureau of Israel's defence ministry, is scheduled to meet Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman for facilitating a talk with Hamas, Ynet news service reported.

January 12th, 2009 BRASILIA - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Monday called upon the UN to play a key role in the resolution of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip which has claimed hundreds of lives. 'The UN must exercise an important role.

January 11th, 2009 TEHRAN - Iran Monday called upon Muslim countries to severe all their relations, including diplomatic and trade, with Israel as a protest against its military operation in Gaza Strip. Iran's Foreign Minister Manuchehr Motaki told reporters here that he had sent letters to his counterparts of a number of Islamic countries, urging them to take decision similar to what Venezuela and Mauritania had taken in the wake of the Gaza offensive.

January 7th, 2009 GAZA/TEL AVIV - Israel pressed on with both its air and ground offensive in Gaza Thursday as government officials were due to travel to Cairo to discuss Egyptian-French truce proposals. Residents reported heavy shelling in the southern Gaza border town of Rafah overnight, as an Israeli military spokesman said Israel bombed another 15 smuggling tunnels running under the border with Egypt, as well as what he said was the house of a militant commander who oversaw the rocket attacks from the Rafah area at nearby Israeli targets.

January 6th, 2009 JERUSALEM - Israel said Wednesday that it viewed as 'positive' the Egyptian-French attempts to advance a diplomatic solution to the conflict in the Gaza Strip. A terse official statement said: 'Israel is working to improve the security reality in the south of the country.

January 6th, 2009 TEL AVIV - Israel plans to establish a 'humanitarian corridor' to get needed supplies to Palestinian civilians in the embattled Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced overnight Tuesday. The plan would allow limited time windows to get humanitarian supplies into parts of the Palestinian territory, Ynetnews reported online, citing the prime minister's office.

January 6th, 2009 BAGHDAD - Iraq's Prime Minister Wednesday called on all Arab and Muslim countries to cut their ties with Israel, calling the Israeli military attacks on Gaza 'a dreadful crime', according to a press statement. Nouri al-Maliki said that 'we ask Arab countries and all Muslims to cancel their diplomatic relations and stop all contacts - private and public - with this murderous regime, which continues its painful aggression against peaceful, unarmed civilians'.