Tel Aviv: After months of tensions over the Gaza war, Brazil has withdrawn its ambassador to Israel, a move that was announced this week by the South American country's official gazette.
Relations between the two nations touched a new low with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accusing the Israeli government of "genocide" in February this year.
In response, Israel declared the 78-year-old Brazilian leader "persona non grata" and also summoned Brazilian ambassador, Frederico Meyer to the National Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem for a public reprimand. Also, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Lula's comments as “disgraceful and grave”.
An official at Brazil’s foreign ministry told the AP news agency that Brazil's move comes after Meyer’s humiliation by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz. "Any appointment of a new Brazilian ambassador to Israel will be announced in due course in a press release. For the time being, the Brazilian Embassy in Tel Aviv continues to function under the leadership of the chargé d’affaires", Brazil’s foreign ministry said.
While Meyer has been posted to Geneva and will join the country's permanent mission to the United Nations, Brazilian representation in Israel will be led by diplomat Fabio Farias. Meanwhile, Brazil has welcomed formal recognition of a Palestinian state by Ireland, Norway, and Spain.
"By urging all other countries that have not yet done so to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state, Brazil reaffirms its defense of the two-state solution, with an independent and viable state of Palestine living side by side with Israel, in peace and security", Brazil's foreign ministry said in a statement.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 81,000 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s attacks on October 7, which sparked the war, is at least 1,139, and dozens of people are still being held captive in Gaza.
