Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced on Monday that the Brazilian ambassador to Israel would be recalled amid tensions between the countries after da Silva compared Israel to Hitler.
In addition, Brazil has decided to summon Israel's ambassador to the country for a reprimand.
Earlier on Monday, Foreign Minister Israel Katz called the Brazilian Ambassador, Federico Mayer, for a reprimand in the wake of da Silva’s comments.
The reprimand took place at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.
During the meeting, Katz showed Mayer the list of names of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, including members of his own family.
"I called you to the place which more than anywhere else testifies to everything the Nazis and Hitler did to the Jews, among them my family members," Katz said. "The comparison between the just war that Israel is fighting against Hamas and the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and the Nazis is an embarrassment and disgrace and a serious antisemitic attack."
Katz also said that da Silva would be a persona non grata in Israel: "We will not forgive and we will not forget: In my name and in the name of all citizens of Israel, tell President Lula that he is a persona non grata in Israel until he apologizes and retracts his statements."
On Sunday, da Silva compared the IDF’s actions in Gaza to Hitler’s actions against Jews in World War II, saying, "What is happening in the Gaza Strip is not war. This is genocide. It is not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It is a war between a trained military against women and children. What is happening in the Gaza Strip against the Palestinian people has not happened at almost any other time in history. In fact, it only happened once; when Hitler decided to kill the Jews."