Israeli overseas minister says he’ll summon Brazil’s ambassador for a reprimand over the remarks which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as ‘disgraceful’.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has accused Israel of committing “genocide” towards Palestinians within the Gaza Strip and in contrast its warfare on Gaza with Adolf Hitler’s marketing campaign to exterminate Jewish folks.
“What’s taking place within the Gaza Strip isn’t a warfare, it’s a genocide,” Lula instructed reporters in Addis Ababa the place he was attending an African Union summit on Sunday.
“It’s not a warfare of troopers towards troopers. It’s a warfare between a extremely ready military and girls and youngsters,” added the Brazilian president.
“What’s taking place within the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian folks hasn’t occurred at some other second in historical past. Truly, it has occurred: when Hitler determined to kill the Jews.”
Led by Hitler, the Nazis systematically killed six million Jews throughout World Struggle II.
Israeli International Minister Israel Katz mentioned he would summon Brazil’s ambassador for a reprimand over the remarks.
“Nobody will compromise Israel’s proper to defend itself,” Katz mentioned on X, including that the envoy could be summoned on Monday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the feedback as “disgraceful and grave”.
“This can be a trivialisation of the Holocaust and an try to assault the Jewish folks and the correct of Israel to self-defence. Drawing comparisons between Israel and the Nazis and Hitler is to cross a crimson line,” Netanyahu mentioned in an announcement.
Lula, 78, had condemned the Hamas-led October 7 assault on southern Israel as a “terrorist” act the day it occurred.
However he has since grown vocally essential of Israel’s retaliatory navy marketing campaign in Gaza.
At the least 1,139 folks have been killed within the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel, largely civilians, in line with an Al Jazeera tally of Israeli official figures.
Hamas members additionally took about 250 folks captive, 130 of whom are nonetheless in Gaza, together with 30 who’re presumed useless, in line with Israeli authorities.
Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed a minimum of 28,858 folks, largely girls and youngsters, in line with Palestinian authorities.
Lula criticised Western international locations’ current choices to halt support to the UN company for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, after Israel accused a few of its staff of involvement within the Hamas-led assault.
Lula, who met with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh Saturday on the sidelines of the summit, has mentioned Brazil will enhance its personal contribution to the company and urged different international locations to do the identical.
“After I see the wealthy world announce that it’s halting its contributions to humanitarian support for the Palestinians, I simply think about how huge these folks’s political consciousness is and the way huge the spirit of solidarity of their hearts is,” Lula mentioned.
“We have to cease being small once we must be huge.”
He reiterated his name for a two-state resolution to the battle, with Palestine “definitively recognised as a full and sovereign state”.
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