SANTIAGO - Chile has decided to recall its ambassador to Israel for consultations over Israel's violation of international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip, the country's foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

"Chile strongly condemns and observes with great concern that these military operations, which at this point in their development involve collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, do not respect fundamental norms of International Law, as demonstrated by the more than eight thousand civilian victims, mostly women and children," the ministry said in a statement.

Chile's presidency called for "an immediate end to the hostilities" in order to "deploy a humanitarian support operation to help the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people and civilian victims," it said.