Israel’s “inhuman violence against innocents” which Israel is carrying out in Gaza is as deadly as the terrorism carried out by Hamas, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wrote Monday night, Nov. 13, before leaving for the airport to receive some 30 Brazilians and their families, who were finally arriving after waiting for three weeks for Israeli permission to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing. Two of the children aboard the plane were so malnourished they were taken immediately to the hospital by ambulance for treatment. Brazilian officials, it was reported, believed that Israel had held up their permission to leave, because they objected to Brazil’s peace policy for Gaza.
Lula’s posting reiterated that Brazil is going to fight for a ceasefire, and other Presidents should step-up: “At 78, I’ve already seen a lot of brutality and violence. But I’ve never seen such inhuman violence against innocents. Hamas committed an act of terrorism, but Israel’s response is also deadly against innocent women and children. The destruction of everything that was built with great struggle, such as schools, hospitals. The Brazilian government is going to keep fighting for peace—demanding humane conduct of other presidents—for a ceasefire.
Later that night, he called Israel’s “attack on innocent children and women akin to terrorism. If I know that there are a lot of children in a place, there could be a monster inside, you can’t kill the children to kill the monster,” he insisted. “The war must end.”
Lula had exclaimed on Oct. 25 that what Israel is doing in Gaza is not a war, but “genocide.” Lula’s Special Foreign Policy Advisor Celso Amorim raised the same charge in his address to French President Emmanuel Macron’s Nov. 9 humanitarian conference in Paris. “I reiterate Brazil’s condemnation of the terrorist attacks against the Israeli people and the hostage-taking. However, such barbaric acts do not justify the use of indiscriminate force against civilians. The death of thousands of children is shocking. The word genocide inevitably comes to mind”, Amorim told the conference.
He called for a ceasefire, but also for an international peace conference, citing the precedent of the Annapolis meeting of 2007, when 50 countries came together to start a peace process in the region, Brasil 247 reported. “The ambassador assessed that the current crisis is the most dangerous challenge to world peace and has a high risk of turning into a global conflict, and he called a conference with a large number of countries `indispensable’ to discuss a solution for the region,” Brasil 247 reported, then quoting Amorim: “This is not just a war between Hamas and Israel. This is part of a larger, 75-year conflict, the root of which is the lack of a safe territory for the Palestinians. The recognition of a viable Palestinian state, living side by side with mutually agreed borders with Israel, is the only possible solution.’”
