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Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday that he was severing all contact with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas over reports that she compared Israel to South Africa's former apartheid regime.
"Recently, it was published that during her visit to Mexico, she compared Israel to the racist apartheid regime that existed in South Africa," Saar wrote on X.
"Therefore, as the foreign minister of the State of Israel, I have no choice but to sever all contact with Ms. Kallas until she retracts the blood libel she directed at the world's only Jewish state, which is also the only democracy in the Middle East," he said.
Referring to media reports from Kallas' visit to Mexico, Saar said she had likened Israel's treatment of Palestinians to apartheid-era South Africa.
He thanked European officials who had criticized the reported remarks and said Kallas had neither denied nor clarified the reports.
"As Israel's foreign minister, I have no choice but to sever all relations with Ms. Kallas until she retracts this libel. That is exactly what I am doing," Saar said.
Reports emerged following Kallas' May visit to Mexico, alleging that she had compared Israel's policies in the Palestinian territories to South Africa's former apartheid system.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and since then settlement expansion has been a policy under successive Israeli governments. But this has accelerated significantly under the current coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Excluding east Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank in settlements that are illegal under international law, among some three million Palestinians.
Some European diplomats argued that the remarks did not reflect the European Union's official position and said it was problematic for a senior EU official speaking on behalf of the bloc to use such language.
Kallas has not publicly commented on the reports.
However, following a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on June 15, she said she had requested proposals from the European Commission on measures to restrict trade with Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law in the occupied Palestinian territories.
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