BRASILIA: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday the Zionist entity is committing the “equivalent of terrorism” in Gaza by killing innocent women and children in its war on Hamas. The veteran leftist had previously condemned as a “terrorist attack” the Oct 7 assault on the Zionist entity by the Palestinian militant group, in which its fighters stormed across the border from the Gaza Strip, killing around 1,200 people, according to Zionist officials.

But the leader of Latin America’s biggest country said the Islamist group’s actions do not justify the Zionist entity’s military response in Gaza, where more than 11,200 people, mostly civilians, have been killed, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory. “(The Zionist entity’s) attitude toward children, toward women, is the equivalent of terrorism. There’s no other way to put it,” Lula said in his weekly social media address. “If I know a place is full of children, even if there’s a monster inside, I can’t kill the children just because I want to kill the monster.”

Lula, 78, had already come in for criticism from Zionist groups in Brazil for his remarks on the conflict. On Monday, he said that “even if Hamas committed a terrorist act, (the Zionist entity) is also committing various acts of terrorism, by failing to take into account that children and women are not involved in the war”.

Those statements came as he welcomed a flight carrying 32 Brazilians and family members evacuated from Gaza through its land border with Egypt. The evacuation took weeks of diplomatic wrangling, and had stoked tension between Brazil and the Zionist entity. The Brazil-Zionist Institute condemned Lula’s remarks. – AFP