RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian 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 the Brazilian government gazette.
Lula was a frequent critic of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, which he compared to the Holocaust earlier this year. That prompted Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to summon Brazil’s ambassador to the national Holocaust museum in Jerusalem for a public reprimand.
The resignation of Brazil’s ambassador is a response to that humiliating action and the fact that no positive development has taken place 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 was not authorized to speak publicly.
