Brazil president withdraws his country’s ambassador to Israel after criticizing the war in Gaza
By Eleonore Hughes, The Associated Press on May 29, 2024.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva withdrew his country’s ambassador to Israel on Wednesday after months of tensions between the two countries over the war in Gaza. The move was announced in Brazil’s official gazette. Lula has been a frequent critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which he compared to the Holocaust earlier this year. That led Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz to summon the Brazilian ambassador to the national Holocaust museum in Jerusalem for a public reprimand. The removal of Brazil’s ambassador is in response to that humiliating action and the fact that there has been no positive development since then, according to a person at Brazil’s foreign ministry with knowledge of the situation. The person spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. 5-4
