Israeli fury after Brazil’s Lula likens Gaza war to Holocaust

Israeli fury after Brazil’s Lula likens Gaza war to Holocaust

The Gaza war has destabilised the entire Middle East as Hamas’s military allies – all Iran-backed paramilitary groups – have targeted Israeli and US interests with missiles and drones.

Israel has also bombed southern Lebanon in a battle with Tehran-backed Hezbollah militants, and the Yemeni Houthi rebels have choked global trade passing through the Suez Canal and Red Sea.

Israel accused Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of trivialising the Holocaust and causing offence to the Jewish people on Sunday after he likened the Israeli war against Hamas militants in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during World War II.

“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in other historical moments. In fact, it did exist when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” Lula told reporters during the 37th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said it would summon the Brazilian ambassador for a reprimand over the remarks, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as “disgraceful and grave”.

“This is a trivialisation of the Holocaust and an attempt to attack the Jewish people and the right of Israel to self-defence. Drawing comparisons between Israel and the Nazis and Hitler is to cross a red line,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

Brazil’s presidential palace and the foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, the Brazilian Israelite Confederation said Lula’s remarks were a “perverse distortion of reality” and “offend the memory of Holocaust victims and their descendants” and accused his government of an “extreme and unbalanced” stance on the conflict.

Earlier on Sunday, Lula also condemned the suspension of humanitarian aid to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), urging an investigation into errors without cutting off funding to help those affected by what he called a “genocide”.

“It’s not a war between soldiers and soldiers, it’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children,” he said.

UNRWA is facing a financial strain following Israel’s assertion that 12 out of its 13,000 staff members in Gaza were implicated in Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 18 people overnight into Sunday, according to medics and witnesses, while the United States said it would veto another draft UN resolution calling for a ceasefire.

The US, Israel’s top ally, said it instead hopes to broker a ceasefire and hostage-release agreement between Israel and Hamas, and envisions a wider resolution on the war sparked by the militant group’s October 7 attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Hamas’ demands “delusional.”

Netanyahu also opposes Palestinian statehood, which the US calls a key element in a broader vision for the normalisation of relations between Israel and regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia.

His cabinet adopted a declaration on Sunday saying Israel “categorically rejects international edicts on a permanent arrangement with the Palestinians” and opposes any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu has vowed to continue the Gaza offensive until Israel achieves a “total victory” over the Hamas militant group and plans to expand it to Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half the enclave’s 2.3 million Palestinians have sought refuge.

In response to international concern about what would happen to the people in Rafah, the Israeli leader has said residents would be evacuated before a ground offensive began there.

Where they would go in largely devastated Gaza is not clear.