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.