Brazil recalls ambassador from Israel after months of tension over war in Gaza

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva relocated Brazil’s ambassador from Israel to another post over the country’s military campaign in Gaza.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva relocated Brazil’s ambassador from Israel to another post after months of diplomatic tensions over the country’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during an emergency ministerial meeting convened to discuss new measures to support cities affected by floods in the state of Rio Grande do Sul at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on May 13, 2024.(AFP)

Lula’s government said in an official decree that it had appointed Ambassador Frederico Meyer, who it had previously recalled to Brazil in February, to a role in Geneva, Switzerland.

The move marks a further cooling of relations between the two nations. Brazil has not had an ambassador in Tel Aviv since Meyer left amid a spat over Lula’s comments comparing Israel’s military actions to the killing of the Jewish population during the Holocaust.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Lula unwelcome in the country and demanded apologies from both the president and Meyer.

But Lula has yet to go as far Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, a fellow South American leftist who cut off diplomatic ties with Israel after accusing it of “genocide” earlier this month. Petro last week ordered his government to open an embassy in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah.

The official decree does not name a replacement for Meyer. Brazil’s charge d’affaires to Israel will lead the embassy for an indefinite period.