Lula accuses Zionist entity of genocide --- AFP

ADDIS ABABA: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused the Zionist entity Sunday of committing “genocide” against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and compared its actions to Adolf Hitler’s campaign to exterminate Jews. In response, Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the 78-year-old president’s comments “shameful and grave” and said his government had called in Brazil’s ambassador in protest. Lula told reporters in Addis Ababa, where he was attending an African Union summit, that what was happening in the Gaza Strip “isn’t a war, it’s a genocide”. “It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children,” added the veteran leftist. “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.” Lula, a prominent voice for the global south whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the G20, previously condemned Hamas’ Oct 7 attack on the Zionist entity as a “terrorist” act. But he has since grown vocally critical of the Zionist entity’s retaliatory military campaign. Lula criticized Western countries’ recent decisions to halt aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, after the Zionist entity accused some of its employees of involvement in the Oct 7 attack. Lula, who met with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh Saturday on the sidelines of the summit, has said Brazil will increase its own contribution to the agency, and urged other countries to do the same. He reiterated his call for a two-state solution to the conflict, with Palestine “definitively recognized as a full and sovereign state”. – AFP

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