TEHRAN- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has joined a growing list of global leaders and countries that have accused the Israeli regime of committing genocide against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip isn’t a war, it’s a genocide,” President Lula told reporters in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa on Sunday, where he was attending an African Union (AU) summit.

“It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children,” the Brazilian leader added.

Since Hamas’s al-Aqsa Storm Operation on  October 7 last year, which the Brazilian president also denounced at the time, Lula has been increasingly critical of the Israeli daily bombardment of Gaza. 

Also, at the 37th AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Lula said: “What is happening in the Gaza Strip and to the Palestinian people hasn’t been seen in any other moment in history. Actually, it did when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”

Hamas described the remarks as “an accurate description” of what Palestinians are suffering in the Gaza Strip. 

Earlier on Sunday, the Brazilian president also condemned the suspension of humanitarian aid to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA). 

The Brazilian president, who held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the AU summit with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, said his country will increase its contribution to the agency, and urged other countries to do the same.

“When I see the rich world announce that it’s halting its contributions to humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, I just imagine how big these people’s political awareness is and how big the spirit of solidarity in their hearts is,” Lula noted.

Lula, who is a popular voice for the global south and his country currently holds the rotating presidency of the G20, has been attacked non-stop by Israeli officials since his pro-Palestinian remarks at the AU summit. 

On Monday, the Israeli regime declared President Lula “persona non grata” after summoning Brazil’s ambassador for a reprimand. 

This followed the regime formalizing its opposition to what Tel Aviv termed the “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought the “declaratory decision” to a vote in his cabinet, which unanimously approved the measure, that effectively rubber stamps the regime’s stance over its rejection of a Palestinian state. 

Public statements and remarks by Israeli ministers have been clear that they seek Israeli settlers to return to the Gaza Strip and expand in the West Bank. 

Ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir have told their Zionist party supporters that only Jews must be allowed to settle in the occupied West Bank and “Jordan” as well as the Gaza Strip. 

It would lay the platform for a
forced expulsion of Palestinians to leave all the occupied lands that were once a Palestinian state from the River to the Sea in 1948. 

This is the stark difference between a genocidal campaign – the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group – and ethnic cleansing, which has already been proven without doubt amid the regime’s forced displacement of Palestinians over the decades. 

According to former Mossad official, Rami Igra, all children in Gaza over the age of 4 should be subject to the occupation’s collective punishment, including withholding food and humanitarian aid, because “no one in Gaza is uninvolved.”

It is the same fascist rhetoric that was presented by South Africa to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case that saw a vast wealth of evidence by current Israeli officials that showed Tel Aviv is waging a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. 

In a separate case brought against the Israeli regime at the ICJ on Monday, the Palestinian foreign minister also told the UN’s top court that the regime is committing genocide in Gaza and has enforced a policy of apartheid against Palestinians.

Riyad al-Maliki was the first to speak at the opening of hearings on Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

“The genocide underway in Gaza is a result of decades of impunity and inaction. Ending Israel’s impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative,” he said.

Al-Maliki highlighted that the regime has “continued to defy with impunity” a provisional order handed down by the court last month telling Tel Aviv to take measures to prevent the possibility of genocide taking place in Gaza.

“I stand before you as 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of them children, are besieged and bombed, killed and maimed, starved and displaced,” al-Maliki added.

Many analysts say that it is to countries such as South Africa, and leaders like Lula’s, who have shown the courage to voice the reality on the ground, and a reflection of the masses that are demonstrating around the world in their millions over the Israeli military’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. 

Genocide may not necessarily come in the form of dropping bombs and killing civilians. The regime has employed other deadly tools at its disposal to wage the genocidal campaign in Gaza. 

Starvation has been used as a weapon of war by the regime, with the water taps switched off for 2.3 million people in the enclave and a collapsed health system. 

Tel Aviv has allowed a trickle of food and medicine to enter Gaza despite UN warnings that hunger and diseases will outnumber the death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes. 

International aid and human rights agencies have signed a joint statement blaming the regime for making it “virtually impossible” to carry out humanitarian work.

The statement read that “all of the Israeli supposed-safe spaces have been compromised, without exception, further proof that there was never truly anywhere safe in Gaza.” 

The statement highlights yet another step by the regime to ensure that the trickle of aid into Gaza is virtually impossible to deliver. 

The looming Israeli offensive in Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinians have been pushed to seek shelter, now appears to be a key part of Tel Aviv’s genocidal campaign. 

With Egypt making it clear that it won’t play a role in forcibly displaced Palestinians being allowed into its territory, the UN has been asking where these Palestinians should go.

Apart from the sea, half of Gaza’s population has nowhere else to return to. There is nothing left but rubble in what was once their homes in the tiny coastal enclave.