PANAMA CITY (AP) — Days before Venezuela’s presidential inauguration, self-exiled Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González was in Panama Wednesday rallying regional support for the opposition's claims that he won the July election against President Nicolás Maduro.
Accompanied by a dozen former Latin American leaders, González met with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino at the presidential palace, where they were photographed holding what González said are the original ballot tallies that show his landslide victory in the presidential elections of July 28.
"Venezuela is facing very complicated times because the regime insists on clinging to power despite having been widely defeated in the elections,” González said after thanking Mulino for support. “The elections were openly stolen.”
The meeting comes after González left exile in Madrid to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders of Argentina and Uruguay. After the tour around the region, which included a stop in the Dominican Republic on Thursday, González said he plans to go to Venezuela to assume office as president on Friday.
He has not explained how he plans to return or wrest power from Maduro, who has put out an order for his arrest and whose party controls all institutions, including the military.
The Venezuelan opposition hailed another victory on Wednesday when Colombian leftist leader Gustavo Petro said he would not attend Maduro's inauguration due to an arrest of a human rights activist in Venezuela. The shift in posture by Petro, who has cozied up to Maduro, represents a key show of support the opposition has been pushing for.
“We can't recognize elections that were not free," Petro wrote on the social media platform X on Wednesday.
Still, the opposition faces almost insurmountable odds after being dealt blow-after-blow by Maduro's crackdowns following the elections, a long way from the roaring popular support they felt ahead of July elections. Maduro's government never released the official ballot tallies, documents which the opposition said it gathered through a massive grassroots effort.
After claims that the tallies showed an overwhelming victory for González, the Maduro government arrested hundreds of critics and opposition members. On Tuesday, González said his son-in-law was kidnapped.
The crackdown and Maduro's claim of victory met with sharp criticism across the region. Panama was one of the first Latin American countries to demand from Venezuelan authorities a full review of the presidential electoral results after the country's electoral authority declared Maduro the winner.
Mulino's government said it would suspend relations with Caracas until that happened, and on Wednesday the Central American leader only sharpened his discourse against Maduro.
“We want to make it clear to you that Panama is with you and with the legitimacy you represent,” Mulino told González.
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Suárez reported from Bogotá, Colombia. AP writer Joshua Goodman contributed from Miami.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
From left, Mexico's former President Vicente Fox, Panama's former President Ernesto Perez Balladares, Panama's former President Mireya Moscoso, current Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, Venezuela's opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, his wife Mercedes Lopez, Costa Rica's former President Laura Chinchilla and a Mexico's former President Felipe Calderon, pose for a photo at the presidential palace in Panama City, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Agustin Herrera)
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, left, holds up a copy of Venezuela's 2024 election tallies, given to him by Venezuela's opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, right, at the presidential palace in Panama City, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Agustin Herrera)
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, left, receives from Venezuela's opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia a copy of Venezuela's 2024 election tallies at the presidential palace in Panama City, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Agustin Herrera)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza's Health Ministry said Thursday, with no end in sight to the 15-month conflict.
The ministry said a total of 46,006 Palestinians have been killed and 109,378 wounded. It has said women and children make up more than half the fatalities, but does not say how many of the dead were fighters or civilians.
The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence. It says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because the militants operate in residential areas. Israel has also repeatedly struck what it claims are militants hiding in shelters and hospitals, often killing women and children.
In recent weeks, Israel and Hamas have appeared to inch closer to an agreement for a ceasefire and the release of hostages. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that a deal is “very close” and he hopes to complete it before handing over U.S diplomacy to the incoming Trump administration.
But he and other U.S. officials have expressed similar optimism on several occasions over the past year, only to see the indirect talks stall.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza. Israeli authorities believe at least a third of them were killed in the initial attack or have died in captivity.
The war has flattened large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its 2.3 million people, with many forced to flee multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are packed into sprawling tent camps along the coast with limited access to food and other essentials.
“What we are living is not a life. Nobody could bear the situation we’re experiencing for a single day,” Munawar al-Bik, a displaced woman, told The Associated Press in an interview this week.
“We wake up at night to the sounds of men crying, because of the bad situation,” she said. “The situation is unbearable. We have no energy left: we want it to end today.”
Al-Bik spoke on a dusty road in the southern city of Khan Younis next to a destroyed building. Behind her, a sea of makeshift tents filled with displaced families stretched into the distance.
On Thursday, dozens of people took part in funeral prayers outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah for people killed in Israeli strikes the day before.
In the hospital morgue, a man could be seen kneeling and bidding farewell to a relative before slamming a refrigerator door in an outburst of grief.
Palestinian health officials said Israeli airstrikes killed at least nine people in Gaza on Wednesday, including three infants — among them a 1-week-old baby — and two women.
Khaled reported from Cairo.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Mourners attend the funeral of Israeli soldier 1st Matityahu Ya'akov Perel, who was killed in a battle in the Gaza Strip, at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli soldiers and relatives carry the flag-draped casket of 1st Sgt. Matityahu Ya'akov Perel, who was killed in combat in the Gaza Strip, during his funeral at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli soldiers attend the funeral of 1st Sgt. Matityahu Ya'akov Perel, who was killed in a battle in the Gaza Strip, at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Palestinians carry the bodies of their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Kareem Al-Dabaji mourns his brother Anas Al-Dabaji, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit an apartment in Deir Al-Balah, at Al-Aqsa Hospital morgue in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Members of the Bedouin community, part of Israel's Palestinian minority who have Israeli citizenship, attend the funeral of Yosef Al Zaydani in Rahat, southern Israel, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 after the Israeli military said his body of was recovered in an underground tunnel in southern Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Members of the Bedouin community, part of Israel's Palestinian minority who have Israeli citizenship, attend the funeral of Yosef Al Zaydani in Rahat, southern Israel, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 after the Israeli military said his body of was recovered in an underground tunnel in southern Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Smoke rises following an explosion in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Smoke rises following an explosion in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian women look at a damaged residential building following an overnight Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinian kids look at a damaged residential building following an overnight Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from Sderot, southern Israel, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
