2024-02-18 18:05:35
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday accused Israel of committing “genocide” against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and compared its actions to Adolf Hitler’s campaign to exterminate the Jews.
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip is not a war, it is a genocide,” he told reporters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he participated as a guest at the annual summit of the African Union.
The left-wing leader of the main Latin American power declared that the conflict “is not a war of soldiers against soldiers.”
“It is a war between a very prepared army and women and children,” he said.
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has not happened at any other time in history. In fact, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” he added.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Lula’s comments “shameful and serious,” stating that they constitute a “trivialization of the Holocaust,” and announced that his government summoned Brazil’s ambassador to Israel.
“The comparison between Israel and the Holocaust of the Nazis and Hitler represents crossing a red line,” the president said in a statement, in which he insisted that Israel is “fighting to defend itself.”
According to Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, the meeting with the Brazilian ambassador will take place on Monday.
This Sunday’s statements are the most forceful issued so far on the conflict by Lula, an important representative of the countries of the global south and who holds the rotating presidency of the G20.
The Hamas movement “congratulated” in a statement Lula’s statements, which are “an exact description of what his people suffer” in Gaza and reveal “the magnitude of the crime” committed by Israel “with the open support of the Biden administration.” “.
Lula, 78, claimed in November that the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas had committed “an act of terrorism” in its October 7 attack against Israel, which left 1,160 dead, mostly civilians, according to a report established by AFP in based on official Israeli data.
The Islamist commandos also captured 250 people that day, of whom 130 are still held in Gaza, including 30 who reportedly died, according to Israeli figures.
But at the same time Lula has criticized Israel’s “disproportionate response” in Gaza, which has already left 28,985 dead, mostly women and minors, according to the Health Ministry of Hamas, which has governed the territory since 2007.
– Brazil will increase aid to UNRWA –
The Brazilian president traveled this week to Egypt and Ethiopia to deepen his country’s political and economic rapprochement with the African continent, to which it already has cultural and historical ties.
This is his third trip to Africa since he returned to power in January 2023, succeeding the far-right Jair Bolsonaro.
Before the annual assembly of the African Union, a summit of heads of state from the continent’s 55 countries, Lula once again defended the existence of a Palestinian state.
“The solution to this crisis will only be lasting if we move quickly towards the creation of a free and sovereign Palestinian state,” he stressed on Saturday.
“A Palestinian State that is recognized as a member of the United States. Of a strengthened UN and with a more representative Security Council, without countries with veto power and with permanent members from Africa and Latin America,” he noted.
“There will be no military solution to this conflict. The time has come for politics and diplomacy,” he insisted.
Lula, who also met on Saturday with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, stated that Brazil will increase its contribution to the United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA).
Several Western countries suspended their financial aid to the UN body after Israel accused some of its employees of being involved in the October 7 attack.
“When I see that the rich world announces that it will stop its contributions to humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, I imagine how great the political consciousness of these people is and how great the spirit of solidarity is in their hearts,” Lula said.
“We need to stop being small when we need to be big,” he said.
In Cairo, the Egyptian capital, the Brazilian president had described the Israeli offensive as “collective punishment.”
“The State of Israel is also committing several acts of terrorism, failing to take into account that neither children nor women are at war,” he said.
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