Lula once again calls Israel’s action in Gaza genocide and criticizes military spending

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) once again called Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip “genocide”. The president spoke this Wednesday (28) during the 46th Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), held in Georgetown, Guyana. Lula’s accusations against Israel have intensified since the 18th, when he compared the Israeli offensive in Gaza with the extermination of Jews by Nazism.

“A war in distant Ukraine affects the entire planet, because it increases the prices of food and fertilizers. A genocide in the Gaza Strip affects all of humanity, because it questions our own sense of humanity,” he said. He highlighted that “wars cause destruction, suffering and deaths, especially among innocent civilians” and said that “Brazil will continue fighting for world peace.”

Lula also criticized the military spending of rich countries amid the impacts of hunger and the climate crisis. “It is not possible for the world to spend US$2.2 trillion on weapons per year,” said the Brazilian president.

“It is not possible that on a planet that produces enough food to feed the entire world population, around 735 million human beings have nothing to eat. It is not possible for rich countries, which are mainly responsible for the climate crisis, to continue failing to fulfill their commitment to allocate US$100 billion annually to developing countries to combat climate change”, he reinforced.

After visiting Guyana, the president will head to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, in the Caribbean, where the 8th Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) will take place. Although not official, the expectation is that Lula will have a bilateral meeting with the dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in parallel with Celac, on Friday (1st).

Lula called Netanyahu a genocidal

This Tuesday (27), Lula stated that Israel wants to “effectively end the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip” and called the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a genocide. “What I want to say loud and clear is this: the Prime Minister of Israel is carrying out genocide against women and children. This is the historical data”, said the head of the Brazilian Executive in an interview with journalist Kennedy Alencar, on TV network.

“I consider it a genocide, because it is a widely armed Army attacking a defenseless part of society. The Israeli government wants to effectively eliminate the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. And that. It is to exterminate that territorial space with the Palestinian people so that they can occupy it. That’s it, there’s no other explanation,” Lula reiterated during the interview.