Colombia has opened an embassy in West Jerusalem, becoming the 10th country to establish an embassy in the contested city despite widespread international opposition to moves recognising it as Israel’s capital.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar, and Moshe Lion, mayor of West Jerusalem, attended the opening ceremony on Wednesday, according to the Israeli foreign ministry.
Lion said Colombia had become the 10th country to relocate its embassy to West Jerusalem.
The move follows the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries in August 2026, after Colombia severed ties with Israel in May 2024 under its previous government.
Jerusalem remains at the heart of Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians and subsequent occupation of Palestinian lands and is widely regarded as one of its most sensitive issues.
While Israel claims the entire city as its capital, Palestinians view East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel since 1967, as the capital of a future Palestinian state, in line with longstanding international consensus and UN resolutions.
Israel illegally annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, a move that has not been recognised internationally.
In Resolution 478, adopted in August 1980, the UN Security Council rejected Israel’s measures seeking to alter the character and status of Jerusalem and called on countries with diplomatic missions in the city to withdraw them.
Most countries maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv or surrounding areas rather than Jerusalem, reflecting the city’s contested status and the international position that its final status should be resolved through negotiations.
The US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Nauru, and Somaliland, which Israel alone recognises, are the only ones with embassies in West Jerusalem.
