Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Jan.21 (ANI): Trine Lilleng, the first secretary at the Norwegian Embassy in Riyadh, has sent out an e-mail to friends, equating Israel's Gaza offensive to Nazi's Jew Holocaust.

The e-mail includes a juxtaposition of black-and-white pictures from the Holocaust with color images of Operation Cast Lead.

"The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany," the e-mail states.

A copy of the e-mail was obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

The 40-plus pictures included as attachments in the e-mail include the famous image of a Jewish boy with his hands raised as a German soldier points his gun at him, next to an image of an Israeli soldier aiming his weapon at a Palestinian boy.

Another depicts a German soldier firing his weapon, next to an IDF soldier shooting his, while others juxtapose the barbed wire surrounding ghettos and concentration camps to the fence around Gaza, and the West Bank security barrier.

The e-mail asks recipients to forward the message to others.

Reached on her cellphone in Riyadh, Lilleng told the Post she had sent the message to "a few friends" in a "private e-mail," and had not sent any copy to the Post.

She would not say whether it was proper for her to use her ministry e-mail account for such a controversial message.

"I am not interested in saying anything about that," she said.

The Oslo-based Center Against Anti-Semitism in Norway, which has filed an official complaint with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, said it was appalled by the distribution of "clearly anti-Semitic propaganda" by a ministry official.

The center has asked the Norwegian Foreign Ministry to recall the disseminated pictures immediately and to apologize publicly for the incident.

The letter was hand-delivered to the ministry in Oslo on Tuesday. (ANI)