The diplomatic crisis that erupted one month ago when Brazil's president likened the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during World War Two has begun to calm down, Israel's envoy in Brasilia said on Monday.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reacts during a meeting with members of the automotive sector in Brasilia.

"We are trying to lower the flames, and we are hopeful," Ambassador Daniel Zonshine said in an interview with Reuters. "It will take time to get back to full relations," he added.

Relations between the two countries were shaken when President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, visiting Addis Ababa for an African Union summit, incensed Israel saying the only historical precedent for the deaths in Gaza was the Nazi genocide of Jews.

The comparison was totally unacceptable, Zonshine said.

Brazil's ambassador to Israel, Fred Meyer, was summoned to a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz the next day for a reprimand in the Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem. Katz declared that Lula was not welcome in Israel until he apologized, which he has not done.

Meyer was recalled to Brasilia and there is no date for the ambassador's return to Israel.

At least, there have been no new harsh statements by either side, Zonshine said, opening the way to improved relations and the continuation of Israeli cooperation with Brazil in many areas, from agriculture and irrigation to aviation and security technology.

The Brazilian government has not said whether it went ahead with a contribution Lula announced in February to UNRWA, the U.N. agency that provides healthcare, food and education to Palestinian refugees.

Israel accuses UNRWA employees of being members of Hamas, including its military wing. A U.N. investigation is currently studying that evidence and has yet to report on its findings.

Macron to visit Amazon rainforest with Lula on 3-day Brazil tour

French President Emmanuel Macron, who criticized Brazil's previous government for failing to protect the rainforest, will arrive on Tuesday in the Amazon at the start of a three-day visit to the South American country.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will meet Macron in Belem, near the mouth of the Amazon River, where the two will visit conservation parks with sustainable development projects and meet with Indigenous leaders.

"Lula wants to show Macron the complexity of the Amazon, which is not just a vast rainforest but also a place where 25 million people live," Brazil's top diplomat for Europe and North America, Maria Luisa Escorel, told reporters on Friday.

She said the French government intends to fund sustainable development and programs to stop deforestation in the Amazon.

Lula and Macron will discuss a common course to fight both climate change and poverty as Brazil prepares to host the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro in November and United Nations climate talks in Belem next year, both of which the French president will attend, the Elysée said in a briefing.

A stalled trade agreement between the European Union and the South American common market Mercosur will not be on their agenda because it is not a bilateral matter, Brazilian and French officials said.

Macron, who faces pressure from French farmers to kill the deal, has said he opposes the agreement that has been under negotiation for two decades.

Brazil, in turn, is unhappy with EU legislation passed last year barring imports of coffee, beef, soy and other commodities if they are linked to recent deforestation, which Brazilian farmers consider a protectionist offensive.

Despite those issues, relations between France and Brazil have recovered from a low point in 2019 when Macron led a wave of international pressure on then-President Jair Bolsonaro over fires raging in the Amazon. Bolsonaro accused Macron and other G7 countries of treating Brazil like "a colony".

"After a four-year eclipse and a virtual freeze in political relations between our two countries during Bolsonaro's presidency, we are in the process of relaunching the bilateral relationship and the strategic partnership with Brazil," a French presidential adviser said.

On Wednesday, at the Itaguai shipyard outside Rio, Macron and Lula will launch the third Scorpene-class diesel-powered submarine built in Brazil with French technology, part of a $10 billion program that will build Brazil's first nuclear-powered submarine at the end of the decade.

The program is a partnership with France's state-run Naval Group in which the Thales defense group has a 35% stake.

Macron will meet business executives in Sao Paulo on Wednesday afternoon and make a state visit to Brasilia on Thursday, meeting again with Lula and the head of the Senate.

Bolsonaro running mate probed over plan to deploy special forces in Brazil coup plot

Brazilian police are investigating if a retired general who was far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro's running mate planned to bring Army special forces to the country's capital as part of a plan for a military coup after losing the 2022 election.

General Walter Braga Netto, who had been Bolsonaro's defense minister and chief of staff, discussed preparing the travel and housing for members of a guerilla warfare unit to help foment a coup in Brasilia, according to documents seen by Reuters and two sources with knowledge of the investigation.

They say investigators have found Braga Netto played a key role in a plot led by Bolsonaro to prevent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva taking office. The plot was foiled by former commanders of the Army and Navy who said they refused to join the conspiracy.

"Braga Netto acted as an encourager and influencer among the other Army commanders," said one of the sources, who asked for anonymity to speak openly about an ongoing investigation.

The source said investigators suspect Braga Netto was seeking to finance both members of the special forces and Bolsonaro supporters camped outside Army headquarters in Brasilia calling for the military to annul the election result.

Braga Netto's lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

The documents seen by Reuters show Braga Netto hosted a meeting at his apartment in Brasilia to discuss how to raise funds to bring a contingent of elite soldiers to the capital for the coup attempt.

The meeting took place less than two weeks after Bolsonaro lost a runoff vote to Lula in late October.

According to the sources, the plan hatched at that meeting was to secretly bring to Brasilia troops with special training in counter-insurgency warfare and sabotage techniques to provoke violence to justify martial law and annulling the election.

The plan included a draft decree for declaring a "state of siege," copies of which have been found by police investigators.

The conspirators discussed the need for 100,000 reais for "transport, hotel and material" costs to bring members of the special forces to Brasilia, the sources said.

Braga Netto refused to answer questions by Federal Police about such a plan, according Supreme Court documents unsealed last week.

Bolsonaro has denied attempting a coup in the days after his election defeat, which he never conceded. He left for the United States to avoid handing the presidential sash to Lula.

Days later, his supporters who had camped out for weeks opposite Army headquarters stormed government buildings in a violent attempt to provoke a coup.