Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has condemned Israel’s brutal war in the Gaza Strip, saying the occupying regime is committing “genocide” against Palestinians in the besieged enclave, while comparing Tel Aviv’s conduct to Adolf Hitler’s actions against Jews.
Lula made the remarks during a collective interview in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa on Sunday, where he was attending an African Union summit.
“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip isn’t a war, it’s a genocide,” Lula said, adding, “It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children.”
“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,” he said.
Lula further criticized the United States’ decision to suspend contributions to the United Nations Agency for Assistance to Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) after Israel alleged that some of the agency’s staff had participated in the territory’s resistance group’s attack in early October last year.
“What is the size of the solidarity heart of those people who are not selling that in the Gaza Strip, there is not a war, but a genocide?”, Lula said.
“Oh, there is something wrong with an institution that collects money, hurry up, it’s wrong. But do not suspend humanitarian aid for people who have been trying to build their state for many decades,” he added.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has reacted to Lula’s harsh comments, saying he will summon Brazil’s ambassador for a reprimand over the Brazilian president’s criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
“No would will compromise Israel’s right to defend itself,” Katz said in a post on X, adding that Brazil’s envoy would be summoned on Monday.
Israel waged the brutal war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
So far, the occupying regime has killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured about 70,000 others.
The Tel Aviv regime has imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
