Lula maintains his position and states he would repeat the comparison between the atrocities of Israel and Nazi Germany

247 - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said this Tuesday (27) that the genocidal war that Israel is carrying out in the Gaza Strip is against women and children, and stated that he would repeat the statement in which he compared the massacre of the Palestinian people to the mass murder of Jews promoted by the then German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler during World War II.

"I would say the same thing. Because it's exactly what's happening in the Gaza Strip. We can't be hypocritical to think that one death is different from another," Lula said during an interview with journalist Kennedy Alencar, from RedeTV!, in a segment released by the news portal UOL. The full interview will air on Tuesday night.

Lula's original statement, during a trip to Ethiopia this month, when he stated that there was no episode in history like the current conflict in Gaza, except "when Hitler decided to kill the Jews," angered the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lula was then declared "persona non grata" by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who demanded an apology from the Brazilian, and the Brazilian ambassador in Tel Aviv received a reprimand at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Brazil also summoned the Israeli ambassador to demand explanations.

"You don't have in the Gaza Strip a war of a highly prepared Army against a highly prepared Army. You actually have a war of a highly prepared Army against women and children... How many people from Hamas have already been presented dead?" Lula questioned in the interview.

"I didn't even want to say the word Holocaust, Holocaust was the interpretation of the Prime Minister of Israel, not mine. The second thing is: death is death," he said.

"I didn't expect the government of Israel to understand, I didn't expect it, because I have known the citizen historically for some time, I know what he thinks ideologically," he added in the released segment.