Israel summoned Brazil’s ambassador for a reprimand after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva compared its war on Hamas with Adolf Hitler’s extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.

Qatar’s foreign minister said negotiations aimed at securing an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the release of hostages had not progressed as hoped, with issues such as how to address the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza still to be resolved.

The leader of Hezbollah said it would escalate its fight against Israel following a worsening spate of attacks between the two sides.

Israel to launch Rafah offensive unless hostages home by Ramadan

Israel will launch a ground offensive in the Rafah area of Gaza unless the hostages still held by Hamas are released by the Ramadan holiday in March, Israeli Minister Without Portfolio Benny Gantz said on Sunday.

Gantz, a member of Israel’s war Cabinet, pledged that the military would facilitate the evacuation of Gazan civilians in coordination with the US and Egypt to minimise casualties. An estimated one million Palestinians fleeing the fighting in Gaza have taken refuge in the Rafah area in the southern part of the territory bordering Egypt. Ramadan, the month-long Muslim holiday, starts in mid-March.

“To those saying the price is too high — I say this very clearly: Hamas has a choice,” Gantz said in a speech on Sunday to US Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. “They can surrender, release the hostages, and this way, the residents of Gaza can celebrate the holy holiday of Ramadan.” 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that a ground operation in Rafah is essential for eliminating Hamas’s remaining battalions and that those calling for Israel to stay out of the area are essentially calling for Israel to lose the war.

Gantz pledged to continue fighting until Israel’s goals were achieved, including removing the threat of Hamas, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, bringing the remaining around 130 hostages home, and replacing Hamas in Gaza completely. Talks aimed at securing a ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages have stumbled in recent days as Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s demands as “delusional.”

According to recent surveys, Gantz is considered by the public to be the most suitable candidate to become the next prime minister, and his National Unity party is polling far ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud.

Gantz also told the US Jewish leaders that he opposed unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state and that following the 7 October massacre by Hamas, such a step was not the way to regional stability and peace.

The war with Hamas began when the group infiltrated from Gaza and carried out attacks across southern Israel, leaving about 1,200 people dead and taking more than 250 hostages. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 28,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ensuing war. It hasn’t said how many of those are combatants.

The US and EU have designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and Israel has pledged to eliminate the group from the Gaza Strip. The conduct of the war, which apart from the civilian causalities has also destroyed thousands of homes and triggered shortages of food and water, has led some countries to allege that Israel is committing war crimes. 

Those charges are strongly denied by Israeli authorities.

Israel summons Brazil ambassador after Lula’s comments on Gaza

Israel summoned Brazil’s ambassador for a reprimand after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva compared its war on Hamas with Adolf Hitler’s extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.

“The words of the Brazilian president are shameful and serious,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said. “No one will harm Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Lula helps set the tone for the Global South as the current rotating president of the Group of 20 nations. South Africa has also challenged Israel’s war tactics, bringing allegations of genocide to the International Court of Justice. Several Latin American countries have pulled their ambassadors and reevaluated their relations with Israel over the conflict.

Read more: Leftist leaders pull Israel ambassadors in Latin American rebuke

Israel has rejected the accusations, saying it’s heeding international law and seeking to minimise civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip while it fights Hamas.

“What’s happening now hasn’t happened in any other time in history, but when Hitler decided to murder Jews,” Lula said, speaking with reporters in Ethiopia as he wrapped up an official visit to African countries. He said Brazil would defend the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state before the United Nations and asked for humanitarian aid not to be suspended. He has also called Israel’s prosecution of the war “genocide.”

Netanyahu joined with Katz in seeking to summon Brazil’s ambassador. “Comparing Israel to the Nazi Holocaust and Hitler is crossing a red line,” he said.

Qatar says negotiations over Gaza ceasefire ‘not positive’

Qatar’s foreign minister said negotiations aimed at securing an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the release of hostages had not progressed as hoped, with issues such as how to address the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza still to be resolved.

The US signalled over the weekend that it would oppose a potential vote in the UN Security Council calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, saying a proposed resolution may “run counter” to a sustainable end to the conflict.

Qatar is among a group of countries mediating efforts to secure a pause in the war, with Egypt and the US. Netanyahu last week opted not to send a delegation for a fresh round of talks in Cairo, dismissing demands by Hamas as “delusional”.

“The pattern of last few days is not very positive,” Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said on Saturday during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference. “We still see some difficulties on the humanitarian part of these negotiations.”

Separately, on Sunday, Israel’s Cabinet unanimously approved a declaration submitted by Netanyahu rejecting any “international diktat” regarding a permanent arrangement with the Palestinians.

Any arrangement would be achieved only by direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions, and Israel would continue to oppose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, according to the declaration.  

The standstill comes as international fears grow that Israel is poised to launch a military assault on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than one million Palestinians have taken refuge from fighting further north. 

Hezbollah vows to escalate Israel fight after civilian attacks

The leader of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia, said it would escalate its fight against Israel following a worsening spate of attacks between the two sides this week.

Hassan Nasrallah said the group, based in Lebanon, would retaliate against Israel for targeting its positions and killing civilians in recent days. Hezbollah will hit “not just army sites,” he said in a speech on Friday.

“The enemy will pay the price of spilling the blood of our people with blood,” he said in a speech broadcast on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV. 

Read more: What is Hezbollah’s role in the Israel-Hamas war?: QuickTake 

A missile barrage on a northern Israeli town and an army base there killed one soldier on Wednesday. That prompted Israel’s military to launch airstrikes on several southern Lebanese villages, killing eight people and a Hezbollah commander.

While Hezbollah didn’t claim the attack on the Israeli town, called Safed, it came from areas it controls.

Safed is about 15km from Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, far deeper into the country than other places targeted by Hezbollah since an uptick in violence when the Israel-Hamas war erupted on 7 October.

Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily since then, forcing tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese to evacuate their homes.

Still, the skirmishes have been kept within what each side defines as the implicit rules of engagement — civilians aren’t directly targeted and the areas of attack are close to the border.

Israel has been keen not to open another front while the war with Hamas continues.

Yet many Israeli generals and politicians are saying Hezbollah’s attacks need a firmer response and that time for a diplomatic solution is running out.

Hezbollah “continues to threaten our communities,” Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Friday. “We will ensure security and bring our citizens home — via diplomacy or military means,” he said, referring to efforts to allow people to return to their evacuated homes.

Nasrallah (63), who lives in hiding but has his speeches broadcast on big screens in Lebanon, said he “will not tolerate harm to civilians”.

His army can target anywhere in Israel from the northern town of Kiryat Shmona to Eilat in the south, he said. He urged other groups allied with Iran to continue attacking US or Israeli assets and cited Yemen’s Houthis, whose assaults on vessels in the Red Sea have roiled the shipping world. DM