Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has angered his country’s Jewish community with his recent statements about the war in the Gaza Strip. The head of state has equated the Israeli army’s military response to the atrocities of the Islamist Hamas with terrorism.
Referring to civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, Lula said in his weekly video message on social media: “If I know there are children somewhere, even if there is a monster there, I cannot kill the children, because I want to kill monsters.” Fighting has been going on for days around Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest clinic on Palestinian territory. According to Israeli information, there is an underground command point of the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas there. Hamas rejects this.
“They kill innocent people without any criteria,” Lula added. The head of state also accused Israel of “dropping bombs where there are children and hospitals, under the pretext that there is a terrorist there.” “This is inexplicable. First you have to save women and children, then you fight whoever you want,” Lula continued. He was speaking at a ceremony welcoming 22 Brazilians evacuated from the Gaza Strip and 10 of their relatives to the capital Brasília.
“Army placed on equal footing with Hamas”
Representatives of Brazil’s Jewish community rejected the statements. The statements were “false,” “dishonest” and “dangerous,” and they also placed Israel and Hamas on “the same level,” the report said. At the same time, reference was made to “visible and documented efforts” by Israeli authorities to “rescue Palestinian civilians.”
The 78-year-old head of state had condemned Hamas’s atrocities as a “terrorist attack” but had criticized Israel’s military actions several times. According to Israeli information, the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 hostages in the Gaza Strip. Since then, the Israeli army has been attacking targets in the Gaza Strip and ground forces have now also invaded the Palestinian territory. About 11,240 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to Hamas figures, which cannot be independently verified.
Source: Krone
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