The Brazilian president is not welcome in Israel.
On Sunday, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused Israel of committing a “genocide” of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, comparing the Israeli offensive to the extermination of Jews by the Nazis.
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip is not a war, it is a genocide,” Lula told the press from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he was attending an African Union summit.
Israel's response was immediate: "I informed President Lula that he is persona non grata in Israel until he apologizes and retracts his remarks," Israel Katz, the minister of Foreign Affairs, during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, where he summoned the Brazilian ambassador to Israel after these statements.
“The comments made by Brazilian President Lula when he compared the just war of the State of Israel against Hamas, which murdered and massacred Jews, to Hitler and the Nazis are a disgrace and a serious anti-Semitic attack against the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” added Israel Katz.
Already the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reacted strongly on Sunday by denouncing “shameful and serious” remarks.
Hamas welcomes Lula's remarks
These statements are among the most virulent ever made on the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas by Lula, a prominent voice from the South whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the G20.
Hamas, for its part, welcomed in these comments “an exact description of what its people are suffering” in Gaza and reveal “the enormity of the crime” committed by Israel.
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Netanyahu calls Lula’s remarks “shameful”
The 78-year-old Brazilian president condemned the October 7 Hamas attack, calling it a “terrorist” act.
But he has since been very critical of Israel's military campaign of retaliation.