Paraguay's vice president meets Netanyahu and Sa'ar, signs health pact

Paraguay's Vice President Pedro Alliana held talks in Jerusalem with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar and, a day later, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to two press releases issued by the Israeli government. The Foreign Ministry said Sa'ar received Alliana and Paraguayan Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano at the ministry on Wednesday, 7 October 2026, and that the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding covering cooperation in health before a wider session between the delegations.

The Prime Minister's Office said Netanyahu then hosted Alliana at his office in Jerusalem, where the two discussed closer relations and broader cooperation. According to that release, Netanyahu asked the vice president to pass on his warm regards to Paraguay's President Santiago Peña and thanked Paraguay for its support for Israel during the war.

Who was in the room

The Paraguayan delegation was headed by Alliana and Ramírez Lezcano and also included the minister responsible for the environment and sustainable development. The two releases spell his name differently: the Foreign Ministry gives it as Rolando de Barros Barreto, while the Prime Minister's Office lists him as Rolando de Barros.

On the Israeli side, the Prime Minister's Office said the Netanyahu meeting was attended by Sa'ar, by Shmuel Ben Ezra, head of the National Security Council, and by Ofir Falk, the prime minister's foreign policy advisor. The National Security Council is the body inside the Prime Minister's Office that coordinates and advises on national security and foreign policy matters. The ambassadors of both countries were also present, according to the release.

What the two sides said

The Foreign Ministry published statements from both Sa'ar and Alliana. Sa'ar described Paraguay as a country that understands standing firm against great difficulty, said Israel had been attacked on several fronts over the past three years, and said Paraguay had stood beside Israel since the October 7 massacre. "Paraguay has proven itself to be a true friend," he said.

Alliana, in remarks released by the ministry, recalled the Hamas attack of three years ago, expressed solidarity with the families of those killed and with Israeli citizens, and said: "We must act against hatred, antisemitism and terrorism." He noted that Paraguay has designated both Hamas and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist organisations.

Why the timing mattered

The Sa'ar meeting fell on the anniversary of the October 7 attack, when Hamas gunmen crossed from Gaza into southern Israel. The Foreign Ministry said that earlier that day the Paraguayan vice president and foreign minister had visited Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial and research centre in Jerusalem, where they took part in a wreath laying at the Hall of Remembrance. Members of the delegation were also due to attend the ministry's own memorial ceremony for the October 7 victims, led by Sa'ar and attended by foreign diplomats posted in Israel. The ministry said the visit would run until Friday.

Israel and Paraguay

The Foreign Ministry described Paraguay as one of Israel's closest partners in Latin America. It said Paraguay reopened its embassy in Jerusalem in December 2024 following a decision by President Peña, and that Israel has likewise reopened its embassy in Asunción, the Paraguayan capital. The location of embassies is a politically sensitive question because the status of Jerusalem is contested internationally, and most countries keep their missions elsewhere, so a decision to place an embassy in Jerusalem is generally read as a signal of political closeness to Israel.

The Netanyahu meeting is listed by the Prime Minister's Office under Israel's 37th Government, the coalition currently in office.

What the reports do not say

Both accounts come from the Israeli government; no Paraguayan government statement or independent report is included in the material, so the description of the talks reflects only the Israeli side's framing. The Foreign Ministry did not publish the content of the health memorandum, its scope, any budget or a timetable for carrying it out. Neither release gives detail on which other areas of cooperation were discussed beyond the general reference to a range of fields. The Prime Minister's Office release does not say whether any agreements were signed at the Netanyahu meeting, and neither release describes the rest of the delegation's programme before its departure.