Sao Paulo, Brazil – Hundreds of Lebanese demonstrated here Friday in the heart of Brazil’s largest city against Israel’s military offensive in their homeland, which has claimed more than 360 lives, including those of seven Brazilian citizens.
The protest was organized by the Committee of Solidarity with the Arab Peoples, which plans similar events in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro.
The group demanded an “immediate end to Israel’s aggression against Lebanon and Palestine” and urged Brazil’s government to publicly condemn the military action by the Jewish state.
Brazil is home to an estimated 6 million to 9 million people of Lebanese descent.
Amid a sea of Lebanese flags, some protesters held up pictures of loved ones in Lebanon, messages in Arabic, posters of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrullah and signs equating the Nazi swastika to the Star of David.
Ali El-Khatib, director of the Future Institute, urged a cessation of “indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population of Lebanon and Palestine” and said that Brazil should “act more firmly in its capacity as a U.N. member” to mobilize the world body to compel Israel to relent.
Brasilia sent an air force plane to Turkey earlier this week to pick up around a hundred Brazilian citizens who escaped from Lebanon overland through Syria, and officials announced Thursday that additional flights are planned.
The Lebanese community is concentrated in Greater Sao Paulo and in the city of Foz de Iguacu, which lies in the so-called triple border region where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay converge.
