The National Federation of Oil Workers and the Single Federation of Oil Workers sent a joint letter to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and key ministers in the Brazilian government on Wednesday, urging them to take more concrete action against Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.

In February, President Lula, while he was attending the African Union Summit in Ethiopia, accused Israel of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza and compared its war on Gaza with Nazi Germany’s extermination of Jews.

The letter highlighted that 2.7m barrels of crude oil were exported from Brazil to Israel in 2024 alone, representing a significant portion of Israel's military fuel supply, and Brazil had a global responsibility to avoid complicity in war crimes, as articulated by legal experts and international judicial bodies.