Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva over the weekend for claiming that Israel is committing a Holocaust as it hunts down Hamas terrorists inside Gaza.
Lula’s remarks come as Israel continues to conduct military operations inside Gaza to recover hostages who were kidnapped during the unprecedented October 7 terrorist attack and to eliminate Hamas terrorists and infrastructure. During the early morning surprise attack, Hamas murdered 1,200 people in Israel, injured 5,300+, and kidnapped hundreds.
“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip isn’t a war, it’s a genocide,” Brazil’s far-Left president told reporters at an African Union summit in Ethiopia. “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,” he said. “Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”
Israel has taken unprecedented measures to minimize the loss of civilian life during the war, including dropping hundreds of thousands of leaflets urging Gazans to leave specific areas, calling Gazans and urging them to evacuate, opening up safe corridors so they can travel without being fired upon by Hamas, and calling off airstrikes after civilians were located near a designated target.
Netanyahu responded to Lula’s remarks with a statement posted to social media, saying that Israel would take diplomatic action over the incident.
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“The words of the president of Brazil are shameful and serious. This is about trivializing the Holocaust and trying to harm the Jewish people and Israel’s right to defend itself,” Netanyahu said. “Comparing Israel to the Nazi Holocaust and Hitler is crossing a red line. Israel fights for its defense and securing its future until complete victory and it does so while upholding international law.”
“I decided with Foreign Minister Israel Katz to summon the Brazilian ambassador to Israel for a stern reprimand conversation immediately,” he added.
