Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid slammed his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for alleging Adolf Hitler may have “had Jewish blood” and summoned Moscow’s ambassador for “clarifications”, writes France24.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Israel has sought to keep a delicate balance between the two sides, but remarks by Lavrov to an Italian channel sparked anger in Israel.

Lavrov, speaking to Italian outlet Mediaset’s Rete 4 channel in an interview, claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “puts forward an argument of what kind of Nazism can they have if he himself is Jewish”.

“I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood”, - Lavrov added.

Lapid in a statement from the foreign ministry on the “grave remarks” condemned them as “an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error”: “Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism”.

Israel’s foreign ministry “has summoned the Russian Ambassador to Israel for a clarification meeting”, the statement added.