Brazil recalls ambassador to Israel in row over Lula’s Gaza comments

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva delivers a speech during the launching of the Health Economic-Industrial Complex program at Planalto Palace in Brasilia on September 26, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 19 February 2024
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Brazil recalls ambassador to Israel in row over Lula’s Gaza comments

  • Earlier on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced that Lula is not welcome in the Middle Eastern country until he takes back his comments

BRASILIA/JERUSALEM: Brazil recalled its ambassador to Israel and Israel said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was not welcome in the country in a diplomatic rift over the South American leader’s comparison of Israel’s war on Gaza to Hitler’s treatment of Jews.
The moves by Brazil, which included summoning the Israeli ambassador for talks, were confirmed by Brasilia’s foreign ministry on Monday after Israeli officials gave Brazil’s ambassador to that country a formal reprimand following Lula’s comment on Saturday.
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in other historical moments,” Brazil’s president, known as Lula, said then.
“In fact, it did exist when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” said Lula during a weekend African Union summit in Addis Ababa, referring to Nazi war crimes during World War II.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced that Lula is not welcome in the Middle Eastern country until he takes back his comments. “We will not forget nor forgive. It is a serious antisemitic attack. In my name and the name of the citizens of Israel — tell President Lula that he is persona non grata in Israel until he takes it back,” Katz told Brazil’s ambassador, according to a statement from Katz’s office.
Brazil’s foreign ministry said it would summon Israel’s ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Zonshine, for a meeting in Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil’s top diplomat is attending a G20 meeting.
The Gaza war began when the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas sent fighters into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has since devastated much of Gaza, killing more than 29,000 people, also mostly civilians according to Palestinian health authorities, and forcing nearly all of its more than 2 million inhabitants from their homes.

 


Indonesian rescuers race to find dozens still trapped in deadly West Java landslide

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Indonesian rescuers race to find dozens still trapped in deadly West Java landslide

  • At least 47 people were killed in the landslide that tore through a mountainside village
  • Rescuers continue searching for some 80 people who remain missing as of Tuesday

JAKARTA: A massive search operation continued in Indonesia’s West Java on Tuesday with rescue workers racing to find dozens of missing people, including members of an elite marine force feared buried in a landslide that has already killed at least 47.

Days of heavy rain that inundated the province’s West Bandung regency triggered a predawn landslide on Saturday, which buried a marine training camp and some 30 houses in Pasirlangu village on the slopes of Mount Burangrang.

Rescuers have had to dig through tons of mud, debris and uprooted trees, as bad weather and unstable soil intermittently hampered search operations since the weekend.

As search operations entered their fourth day on Tuesday, Indonesian authorities mobilized heavier equipment to sift through thick mud and used drones to identify and expand search locations, said Ade Dian Permana, who heads the Search and Rescue Agency in Bandung.

“As of 5:20 p.m., the total number of bodies we have recovered since the first day until the fourth day now stands at 47,” Permana said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

“We are looking for about 80 people … The number of people impacted and missing may change, which means there could be more than what we are currently looking for.”

The number of people missing was double that reported on Monday evening, when it stood at 42.

Among those missing were members of a 23-member marine unit training for a long-duration assignment on the Indonesia-Papua New Guinea border, at least four of whom have been confirmed among the dead, Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Muhammad Ali has confirmed, while the rest remain unaccounted for.

“Heavy rain over two nights triggered the slope failure that buried their training area,” Ali told reporters on Monday.

Floods and landslides are common in Indonesia during seasonal rains from October to March.

The landslide in West Java is the latest in a string of severe weather-related disasters in the archipelagic country, where floods and landslides on Sumatra island late last year killed more than 1,200 people and displaced over half a million.

In the capital Jakarta, officials have issued work-from-home and flexible work recommendations due to extreme weather, with heavy rains triggering widespread flooding in the city since the beginning of the year.