Díaz-Canel to Lula da Silva: “We applaud and admire your courage”

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel expressed his solidarity with and admiration for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his Brazilian counterpart, who was declared persona non grata in Israel following his condemnation of the war of extermination launched by the Israeli State against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip.

“We applaud and admire your courage. You will always be on the right side of history,” Diaz-Canel stated on his X account.

“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history. In fact, it existed: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” were the controversial words that earned Lula da Silva the animosity of Israel, which accused him of trivializing the Holocaust.

The Brazilian president, who delivered his statement while attending the African Union summit held in Ethiopia, questioned the decision of some countries to stop providing funds to the UN agency that helps the Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

“It is not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children,” said Lula da Silva, who reaffirmed Brazil's condemnation of Hamas but also assured that he condemns what Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that these statements by the Brazilian president were an attempt to harm the Jewish people and Israel's right to defend itself.

Since the beginning of the attacks on October 7, 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 29,000 people, mostly Palestinian women and children, and has expelled more than 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants from their homes.