Pro-Palestine march in Brazil
Activist replaces ‘Israel’ street sign with Palestine in Brazil
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- Activist Thiago Avila has a long history of Palestine solidarity.
Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila removed a street sign reading "State of Israel" from a square in São Paulo on Monday and replaced it with one reading "Free Palestine" / "Palestine Square," in what he described as an act of solidarity with Palestinians amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Ávila, a prominent pro-Palestinian activist who has taken part in multiple humanitarian flotillas attempting to reach Gaza by sea, posted footage and photos of the sign swap on social media, accompanying the act with a lengthy statement condemning ‘Israel's’ conduct in Gaza and calling for accountability from world leaders.
"All solidarity to the Palestinian people who continue to suffer a genocide by the Zionist state of Israel," Ávila wrote in the caption accompanying his post, adding that those who denounce "the killing of children and all the war crimes committed in Gaza" face censorship, threats, persecution, and, in some cases, detention.
In his caption, Ávila also referenced the ceasefire agreement that has been in place for roughly a year, calling it a "false ceasefire" and alleging that killings continue, that humanitarian aid is still being obstructed, and that hunger and land seizures persist in Gaza.
He directed sharp criticism at US President Donald Trump and ‘Israeli’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he described as war criminals pursuing "this genocide," and called for both leaders to be kept out of Latin America and its internal politics.
The sign-swap follows a pattern of similar symbolic actions by pro-Palestinian activists and collectives across Brazil over the past year, including an incident in Belo Horizonte in August 2025 in which a local collective placed pro-Palestinian stickers over a sign marking that city's own "State of Israel" square.
Brazil formally recognized the State of Palestine in 2010, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government has repeatedly voiced concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, though it has stopped short of using the term genocide in official statements as consistently as Ávila and allied activist groups have.
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