MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lula asks Israeli president for humanitarian corridor

“Brazil is available to try to find a path to peace,” Lula also wrote

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Thursday thanked his Israeli colleague Isaac Herzog during a telephone conversation for the assistance provided to the South American country's mission evacuation people from the war-torn area, Agencia Brasil reported. The Workers' Party leader also condemned the “terrorist” attacks perpetrated by the Hamas group.

 “I thanked him for their support for the operation to withdraw the Brazilians who wish to return to our country. I reaffirmed Brazil's condemnation of the terrorist attacks and our solidarity with the families of the victims,” Lula said.

He also asked the Israeli head of state not to let there be a shortage of water, electricity and medicine in hospitals, and appealed for the opening of a humanitarian corridor to allow people to leave the Gaza Strip.

“It is not possible for innocent people to be victims of the insanity of those who want war. I conveyed my call for a humanitarian corridor so that people who want to leave the Gaza Strip through Egypt have safety. And that Brazil is available to try to find a path to peace,” Lula also wrote.

The violence in Israel and Palestine reached its sixth day on Thursday, with intense shelling continuing in the Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million Palestinians live. Local authorities have already counted 1,200 deaths and more than 5,000 injured. At least 180,000 people are homeless.

In Israel, according to public broadcaster Kan, the death toll had risen to 1,300 since last Saturday, when violent attacks by the Islamist group Hamas began.

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) also warned on Thursday that essential supplies, including food and water, were at a dangerously low level in Gaza, following Israel's blockade of the enclave.