Brazil’s Lula accuses Israel of ‘genocide’ in Gaza

FILE PHOTO: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva addresses the opening of the 37th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union at the African Union Headquarters, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia February 17, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
| Photo Credit: STRINGER

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused Israel on Sunday of committing “genocide” against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and compared its actions to Adolf Hitler’s campaign to exterminate Jews.

In response, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the 78-year-old President’s comments “shameful and grave” and said his government had called in Brazil’s Ambassador in protest.

Lula told reporters in Addis Ababa, where he was attending an African Union summit, that what was happening in the Gaza Strip “isn’t a war, it’s a genocide”.

“It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared Army and women and children,” added the veteran leftist.

“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”

Lula, a prominent voice for the global south whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the G-20, previously condemned Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel as a “terrorist” act.

But he has since grown vocally critical of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign.

Mr. Netanyahu called Lula’s remarks “Holocaust trivialisation and an attempt to harm the Jewish people and the right of Israel to defend itself”.

“The comparison between Israel to the Holocaust of the Nazis and Hitler is crossing a red line,” he said in a statement.

“Israel is fighting to defend itself and ensure its future until total victory and it is doing that while upholding international law.”

“I have decided with Foreign Minister (Israel) Katz to summon the Brazilian ambassador in Israel for an immediate reproach.”

Katz wrote on the X social media platform that the meeting would take place on Monday.

Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also took about 250 people hostage, 130 of whom are still in Gaza, including 30 who are presumed dead, according to Israeli figures.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed at least 28,858 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Lula criticised Western countries’ recent decisions to halt aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, after Israel accused some of its employees of involvement in the October 7 attack.

Lula, who met with Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh Saturday on the sidelines of the summit, has said Brazil will increase its own contribution to the agency, and urged other countries to do the same.

He reiterated his call for a two-state solution to the conflict, with Palestine “definitively recognised as a full and sovereign state.”