JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0An extremist Cabinet member in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government publicly advocated for killing \u201c30 to 40\u201d people in Gaza each night, comments that surfaced Sunday and were quickly shared by Palestinian media.<\/p>\n
Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir made the statement while speaking to a former Hamas-held hostage in Gaza, Rom Braslavski, on Braslavski\u2019s podcast. The two were discussing Israel\u2019s recovery from the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, when Ben-Gvir criticized Israel\u2019s recent drawdown of strikes in the Gaza Strip. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no secret, I disagree with the prime minister,\u201d he said. \u201cI think targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night. Not just those who pose an immediate threat \u2014 there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn\u2019t live. They\u2019re not even people.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past, similar statements by Ben-Gvir and other Israeli officials were widely condemned. Many have been presented to the United Nations world court as evidence of genocidal intent. Israel denies it has committed genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s domestic media has made scarce mention of the statement, highlighting how once-fringe ideologies like Ben-Gvir\u2019s are surging in the lead-up to Israeli elections Oct. 27. <\/p>\n
Figures like Ben-Gvir have become more popular among Israelis since Hamas\u2019 brutal attack in 2023, when the militants killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. Many hostages have recounted long-term starvation, physical and psychological abuse and, in some cases, sexual abuse. <\/p>\n
One of Israel\u2019s most influential leaders<\/p>\n
Ben-Gvir does not have power over the country\u2019s military and cannot order strikes on Gaza. But, after operating for decades within Israel\u2019s far-right fringe, he is now one of the most influential people in the country. <\/p>\n
He has substantial control over key parts of Israel\u2019s security apparatus, running the country\u2019s prisons \u2014 where thousands of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank are incarcerated \u2014 as well as the national police force.<\/p>\n
He has previously boasted of lessening food rations for Palestinian prisoners. Israel\u2019s top court ruled in 2025 that the prison service under Ben-Gvir was depriving Palestinians of a minimum subsistence diet.<\/p>\n
Critical of reducing strikes in Gaza<\/p>\n
Until recently, Israel was striking Gaza nearly every day, attacks that have killed more than 1,250 people since an October ceasefire deal came into effect, according to Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry. Hundreds of civilians, including women and children, are among the dead, according to the ministry, whose casualty information is deemed reliable by the U.N. and other international monitors. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military, which says the strikes have targeted Hamas militants, appeared to ease off on the attacks in a quiet concession to President Trump after Netanyahu rejected his latest attempt to move the truce forward.<\/p>\n
Israeli media last week reported that the authority for carrying out strikes has now been limited to the army\u2019s chief of staff, raising the ire of right-wing lawmakers such as Ben-Gvir. <\/p>\n
Mass emigration, expulsion of Palestinians<\/p>\n
In the same taped appearance, the lawmaker advocated for mass emigration of Palestinians from Gaza \u2014 a proposal that international lawyers say could amount to ethnic cleansing \u2014 and resettlement of Gaza by Israel.<\/p>\n
Twenty years ago, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, dismantling a block of 21 Jewish settlements known as \u201cGush Katif\u201d and pulling out its forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see all of Gaza as ours,\u201d Ben-Gvir said in the interview. \u201cSettlements not just in Gush Katif but throughout Gaza, encouraging as much emigration as possible, sending them to their countries, and for the terrorists, no emigration, nothing, just to kill them one by one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s latest proposal involves Hamas gradually giving up its weapons while Israeli forces halt their attacks and begin withdrawing from Gaza. Hamas accepted the deal, although the group linked the surrender of its heaviest weapons to the creation of a Palestinian state, something Israel\u2019s current government and most of its political class adamantly reject.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu says Israel will not retreat from any of its positions in Gaza until Hamas has been completely disarmed. The stance leaves other elements of the ceasefire, including the deployment of international forces and any reconstruction of the devastated territory, on hold.<\/p>\n
Frankel writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0An extremist Cabinet member in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government publicly advocated for killing \u201c30 to 40\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[9103,69691,1555,496,14151,2427,37,876,2253,396,722,975,69692,695,680],"class_list":["post-251693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-ben-gvir","tag-brutal-attack","tag-country","tag-gaza","tag-hamas-attack","tag-health-ministry","tag-israel","tag-netanyahu","tag-palestinians","tag-people","tag-president-trump","tag-prison","tag-right-wing-lawmaker","tag-statement","tag-strike"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117106669137832534","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}