Brazil slams ‘endless massacre’ in Gaza after bombings

People carry a casualty at the site of what Palestinians say was an Israeli strike at a tent camp in Al-Mawasi area, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip July 13, 2024. (Reuters)

• Brazil in May withdrew its ambassador from Israel over the conflict, ratcheting up tensions after he earlier accused the country’s government of genocide

RIO DE JANEIRO: The government of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday denounced Israeli strikes on southern Gaza, urging the world not to “remain silent in the face of this endless massacre.”
“The most recent bombing in the Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent people, is unacceptable,” read a statement from the presidency.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said at least 92 people were killed and 300 wounded in a Saturday strike on Al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated “safe zone” on the Mediterranean coast.
The civil defense agency said another 20 were killed in an Israeli strike on a makeshift mosque at Al-Shati refugee camp in the territory’s north.
On Sunday, 15 were killed in a Gaza school sheltering those displaced by the war, according to the civil defense agency.
“It is appalling that they continue to collectively punish the Palestinian people. Tens of thousands have already died in successive attacks since last year, many of them in delimited humanitarian zones that should be protected,” said the statement.
“We, the political leaders of the democratic world, cannot remain silent in the face of this endless massacre.”
Hamas on Sunday decided to withdraw from Gaza ceasefire negotiations in the wake of the bombings.
Brazil in May withdrew its ambassador from Israel over the conflict, ratcheting up tensions after he earlier accused the country’s government of genocide.
Israel reacted furiously, declaring the Brazilian leader persona non grata.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 38,584 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.