Israel has declared Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva “persona non grata” for describing the Jewish state’s military campaign in Gaza as comparable to the Holocaust.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lula had “crossed a red line,” and Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Lula is “persona non grata in the state of Israel so long as he doesn’t retract his remarks and apologize.”

The Holocaust refers to Nazi Germany’s extermination of some 6 million Jews in Europe during World War II and Lula called Israel’s war with Hamas terrorists in the Palestinian territory “genocide.”

Katz summoned Brazil’s ambassador Frederico Meyer for a meeting Monday at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center in Jerusalem.

In a tit-for-tat move, the Brazilian foreign ministry then said it had also summoned the Israeli ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Zonshine, for a meeting later that same day, and recalled Meyer from Tel Aviv for consultations.

According to a diplomatic source, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira and Zonshine had a “harsh, but appropriate” conversation, as Vieira “demonstrated dissatisfaction” with the treatment of Meyer and Lula in Jerusalem over the situation.

That included Meyer being forced to listen to a statement in Hebrew “without an interpreter, without knowing what was being said,” the source added.

The 78-year-old Lula’s comments came as Brazil prepares to host a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting Wednesday and Thursday, when top diplomats including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gather in Rio de Janeiro, with the divisive Gaza conflict high on the agenda.

The war started 7 October, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack that left about 1,160 people dead in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally of official Israeli figures.

Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages — 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 29,092 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

In the aftermath of Hamas’ attack, Lula condemned it as a “terrorist” act.

But he has since grown vocally critical of Israel’s response.

WITH AFP