BRAZIL WITHDRAWS AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL AFTER MONTHS OF TENSIONS OVER GAZA WAR CRITICISM

Wed 29 May 2024:

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has withdrawn his country’s ambassador to Israel after months of tensions between the two countries over Israel’s war on Gaza.

The move was announced in Brazil’s official gazette on Wednesday. There was no immediate response from Israel.

Lula has been a frequent critic of Israel’s offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip, which he compared to the Holocaust this year. That led Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to summon the Brazilian ambassador to the national Holocaust museum in West Jerusalem for a public reprimand.

Ambassador Frederico Meyer has been transferred to Geneva and will join Brazil’s permanent mission to the United Nations and other international organisations.

Lula, a prominent voice for the Global South whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the G20, has faced pushback at home from the far right over his Holocaust comments.

However, he has received support elsewhere in Latin America, notably from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has also severed ties with Israel.

Both Brazil and Colombia have supported South Africa’s complaint against Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, alleging the Gaza assault amounts to a breach of the Genocide Convention.

More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 81,000 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s attacks on October 7, which sparked the war, is at least 1,139, and dozens of people are still being held captive in Gaza.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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