Israeli foreign minister says he will 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” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and compared its war on Gaza with Adolf Hitler’s campaign to exterminate Jewish people.
“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip isn’t a war, it’s a genocide,” Lula told reporters in Addis Ababa where he was attending an African Union summit on Sunday.
“It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children,” added the Brazilian president.
“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.”
Led by Hitler, the Nazis systematically killed six million Jews during World War II.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he would summon Brazil’s ambassador for a reprimand over the remarks.
“No one will compromise Israel’s right to defend itself,” Katz said on X, adding that the envoy would be summoned on Monday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the comments as “disgraceful and grave”.
But he has since grown vocally critical of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza.
At least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an media tally of Israeli official figures.
Hamas members also took about 250 people captive, 130 of whom are still in Gaza, including 30 who are presumed dead, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 28,858 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian authorities.
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 Hamas-led attack.
“We need to stop being small when we need to be big.”
He reiterated his call for a two-state solution to the conflict, with Palestine “definitively recognised as a full and sovereign state”.
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