• Brazil has withdrawn its ambassador to Israel after months of tensions between the two countries over the war in Gaza.
• Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
• The Brazilian Embassy in Israel has been left without an ambassador.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva withdrew his ambassador to Israel on Wednesday after months of tensions between the two countries over the war in Gaza.

The move was announced in Brazil’s official gazette. There was no immediate response from Israel.

Lula has been a frequent critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which he compared to the Holocaust earlier this year. That led Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz to summon the Brazilian ambassador to the national Holocaust museum in Jerusalem for a public reprimand.

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At the time, Lula called Brazil’s Ambassador Frederico Meyer home. Wednesday’s action represented an escalation — a diplomatic downgrade, with the Brazilian Embassy in Israel still there but without an ambassador in the post.

According to a person at Brazil’s foreign ministry, the official removal comes was in response to Meyer’s humiliation by Israel’s top diplomat. The person, who has knowledge of the situation, spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

Meyer has been transferred to Geneva and will join Brazil’s permanent mission to the United Nations and other international organizations.

The latest war in Gaza, now in its eighth month, began when the Palestinian militant Hamas group burst into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 civilians and taking around 250 hostages.

Israel’s offensive in response to that attack has killed at least 36,096 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. Israel says it has killed 13,000 militants.

In February, Brazil’s Lula said that “what is happening in the Gaza Strip and to the Palestinian people hasn’t been seen in any other moment in history. Actually, it did when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”

Israel says its war in Gaza is a defensive action triggered by Hamas’ unprecedented assault and rejects any comparisons of its offensive to the Holocaust.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal warned that “Europe is mortal” as he campaigned in Boulogne in support of Valérie Hayer, the lead candidate fielded by Emmanuel Macron’s ruling Renaissance Party to fight the European elections.

The prime minister called on the French people to vote on 9 June, stressing the importance of the election as Europe faces a range of serious threats.

With just over a week to go before France votes in the elections, the far-right party National Rally is leading the polls with more than 30 per cent of the vote, followed by Renaissance and the Socialists.

Macron, whose party is currently predicted to capture around 16 per cent of the vote, called on voters to “wake up” to the rise of the far right.

In Attal’s view, the EU risks being left behind by the economic competition between the US and China, while the threat from Russia means and the bloc must be able to defend itself without falling back on American assistance.

Hayer, meanwhile, devoted her speech to women’s rights.

“At a time when some are moving forward, masked or otherwise, against women’s rights, I say this to you all. For us ladies, for our grandmothers, for our mothers, for your wives, for your sisters, for your daughters, our responsibility is immense”, she said.