"They are killing innocent people without any criteria," said Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at a ceremony in Brasilia welcoming Brazilians and their families who had been evacuated from Gaza.

The leader of Latin America's largest country also accused Israel of "dropping bombs where there are children, hospitals, on the pretext that a terrorist is there."

"They are not killing soldiers, they are killing children," he told journalists at the Brasilia Air Base, adding that the number of women and children killed or missing was unheard of.

Lula, 78, who hugged and kissed the returnees on the tarmac, said he had "never" seen "such brutal and inhuman violence against innocent people".

"This is inexplicable. First you have to save the women and children, then you fight with whomever you want," Lula said.

Representatives of Brazil's Jewish community denounced these remarks as "erroneous", "unfair" and "dangerous", adding that they "put Israel and Hamas on the same level".

Lula's comments came as he welcomed to Brasilia 22 Brazilians and 10 members of their families who left Gaza on Sunday via the land border with Egypt, after more than a month of waiting in the conflict zone.

He hailed the arrival of the returnees, which he said was "the culmination of a very serious work by many people".