Nicaragua breaks off ties with Israel

Nicaragua on Friday announced plans to break off relations with Israel over the war in Gaza, calling the Israeli government "fascist and genocidal."

Left-wing president Daniel Ortega, who has been fiercely critical of Israel's yearlong war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, ordered ties to be cut over Israel's attacks on Palestinian territories, said Vice President Rosario Murillo, who is also Ortega's wife.

The move is an essentially symbolic one, with ties between Israel and the central American country virtually nonexistent. Israel has no ambassador in the Nicaraguan capital Managua.

Nicaragua has twice before broken off ties with Israel -- once in 2010 under Ortega as well as in 1982 under the Sandinista revolutionary government led by Ortega following the country's 1979 revolution.