Brazil’s president: Israel committing ‘genocide’ against Palestinians

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has condemned Israel’s brutal war in the Gaza Strip, saying the occupying regime is committing “genocide” against Palestinians in the besieged territory, while comparing Tel Aviv’s atrocities to Adolf Hitler’s actions against Jews.

Lula made the remarks during a collective interview in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa on Sunday, where he was attending an African Union summit.

“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip isn’t a war, it’s a genocide,” Lula said, adding, “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. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” he said.

Lula further criticized the United States’ decision to suspend contributions to the United Nations Agency for Assistance to Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) after Israel alleged that some of the agency’s staff had participated in the resistance group’s attack in early October last year.

“What is the size of the solidarity heart of those people who are not selling that in the Gaza Strip, there is not a war, but a genocide?”, Lula said.

“Oh, there is something wrong with an institution that collects money, hurry up, it’s wrong. But do not suspend humanitarian aid for people who have been trying to build their state for many decades,” he added.