Venezuela's president has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "modern Herod," and proposed to take care of Palestinian children orphaned by the conflict in Gaza.
Nicolas Maduro alleged that "500 boys and girls have died and more than 3000 have been crippled" during the Israeli offensive.
"Netanyahu is a modern Herod. He wants to eliminate all the children of Palestine," he said in a speech on Friday.
Herod was a king of ancient Judea who allegedly ordered the massacre of infant boys in Bethlehem to prevent the rise of a messiah to challenge his reign, according to one story in the New Testament.
Maduro said he had made an offer to Palestinian authorities to care for several hundred children affected by the war.
"I want to provide a refuge for boys and girls who have been injured or traumatised from Palestine," he said. "I want to bring a large group of children, as many as 1000, to study in Venezuela, to grow up in peace and to return home with careers, to produce, to work."
