Israel should be killing “30 to 40” people each night in Gaza and should build Jewish settlements in the Palestinian enclave, the country’s far-right national security minister has said in an interview. Itamar Ben-Gvir, a hardline settler previously convicted of incitement to racism, made the comments on a podcast hosted by Rom Braslavski, who was taken hostage by the Palestinian militant group Hamas during its October 7 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.
“I think we should be doing 30 to 40 targeted assassinations per night,” Ben-Gvir said. “Not just those who pose an immediate threat. There are people there who don’t deserve to live . . . They are not even people.” Ben-Gvir also called for the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory, saying that he envisaged “all Gaza” belonging to Israel, and reiterating his previous calls for Palestinians to “emigrate”.
“I imagine settlements not just in Gush Katif but throughout Gaza, and encouraging emigration, the more the better,” he said, referring to settlements that were dismantled by Israel in 2005. “And for the terrorists, there should be no emigration. We should just kill them one by one.”
During Hamas’s October 7 attack, militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took more than 250 hostages to Gaza where they were kept in harsh conditions, with many saying they suffered abuse in captivity. Israel responded with a ferocious offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 73,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, and caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave. This includes 1,200 people killed since a ceasefire took effect last October.
The ferocity of the offensive has drawn intense international criticism, and over the past two years, a growing number of groups — ranging from a UN commission to human rights organisations and genocide scholars — have accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
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