Evidence#6: Israeli Minister of Finance:
On 8 October 2023, Bezalel Smotrich stated at a meeting of the Israeli Cabinet that “[w]e need to deal a blow that hasn’t been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza.”
Evidence#7: Israeli Minister of Heritage:
On 1 November 2023, Amichai Eliyahu posted on Facebook: “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes … We must talk about the day after. In my mind, we will hand over lots to all those who fought for Gaza over the years and to those evicted from Gush Katif” [a former Israeli settlement].460 He later argued against humanitarian aid as “[w]e wouldn’t hand the Nazis humanitarian aid”, and “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza”. He also posited a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip.
Evidence#8: Israeli Minister of Agriculture:
On 11 November 2023, Avi Dichter in a television interview recalled the Nakba of 1948, in which over 80 percent of the Palestinian population of the new Israeli State was forced from or fled their homes, stating that “[w]e are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba”.
Evidence#9: Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and Member of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee:
On 7 October 2023, Nissim Vaturi ‘tweeted’ that: “[n]ow we all have one common goal — erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth. Those who are unable will be replaced.”
Evidence#10: Israeli Army Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (‘COGAT’):
On 9 October 2023, in a video statement addressed to Hamas and Gaza residents, published by COGAT’s official channel, Major General Ghassan Alian warned: “Hamas became ISIS and the citizens of Gaza are celebrating instead of being horrified. Human animals are dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, no electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”
Evidence#11: Israeli Army Reservist Major General, former Head of the Israeli National Security Council, and adviser to the Defense Minister:
On 7 October 2023, Giora Eiland, describing
the Israeli order to cut off water and electricity to Gaza, wrote in an online journal: “This is what Israel has begun to do — we cut the supply of energy, water and diesel to the Strip . . . But it’s not enough. In order to make the siege effective, we have to prevent others from giving assistance to Gaza … The people should be told that they have two choices; to stay and to starve, or to leave. If Egypt and other countries prefer that these people will perish in Gaza, this is their choice.” On the same day, he asserted in a national newspaper that “[w]hen you are at war with another country you don't feed them, you don't provide them electricity or gas or water or anything else . . . A country can be attacked in a much broader way, to bring the country to the brink of dysfunction. This is the necessary outcome of events” in Gaza. He has repeatedly asserted the benefits for Israel of the creation of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, stating that “Israel has no interest in the Gaza Strip being rehabilitated and this is an important point that needs to be made clear to the Americans”, and that “[i]f we ever want to see the hostages alive, the only way is to create a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza”. He has indicated that water should be targeted, noting that water in Gaza “comes from wells with salt water unfit for consumption. They have water treatment plants, Israel should hit those plants. When the entire world says we have gone insane and this is a humanitarian disaster — we will say, it’s not an end, it’s a means.” In a Times radio interview on 12 October 2023, he reiterated the army should: “[C]reate such a huge pressure on Gaza, that Gaza will become an area where people cannot live. People cannot live, until Hamas is destroyed, which means that Israel not only stops to supply energy, diesel, water, food … as we did in the last twenty years … but we should prevent any possible assistance by others, and to create in Gaza such a terrible, unbearable situation, that can last weeks and months”. Giora Eiland has repeatedly been given a media platform to call for Gaza to be made uninhabitable, declaring “the State of Israel has no choice but to make Gaza a place that is temporarily, or permanently, impossible to live in.” In an interview on 6 November 2023, he suggested that, “if there is an intention for a military action at Shifa [Hospital], which I think is inescapable, I hope that the head of the CIA got an explanation of why this is necessary, and why the US must ultimately back even an operation like this, even if there are thousands of bodies of civilians in the streets afterward. Further he proposed that “Israel needs to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, compelling tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in Egypt or the Gulf . . . Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” Echoing the words of President Herzog, he has repeatedly underscored that there should be no distinction between Hamas combatants and Palestinian civilians, saying:
“Who are the ‘poor’ women of Gaza? They are all the mothers, sisters or wives of Hamas
murderers. On the one hand, they are part of the infrastructure that supports the organization, and on the other hand, if they experience a humanitarian disaster, then it can be assumed that some of the Hamas fighters and the more junior commanders will begin to understand that the war is futile . . . The international community warns us of a
humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this,
as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer . . . It is precisely its civil collapse that will bring the end of the war closer. When senior Israeli figures say in the media ‘It's either us or them’ we should clarify the question of who is ‘them’. ‘They’ are not only Hamas fighters with weapons, but also all the ‘civilian’ officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population who enthusiastically supported Hamas and cheered on its atrocities on October 7th.”
Evidence#12: Israeli Army reservist “motivational speech”:
On 11 October 2023, 95-year old Israeli army reservist Ezra Yachin — a veteran of the Deir Yassin massacre during the 1948 Nakba — reportedly called up for reserve duty to “boost morale” amongst Israeli troops ahead of the ground invasion, was broadcast on social media inciting other soldiers to genocide as follows, while being driven around in an Israeli army vehicle, dressed in Israeli army fatigues: “Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live . . . Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them. If you have an Arab neighbour, don't wait, go to his home and shoot him . . . We want to invade, not like before, we want to enter and destroy what’s in front of us, and destroy houses, then destroy the one after it. With all of our forces, complete destruction, enter and destroy. As you can see, we will witness things we’ve never dreamed of. Let them drop bombs on them and erase them.”
Evidence#13: Head of the Israeli army’s Air Operations Group:
On 28 October 2023, Lieutenant colonel Gilad Kinan described the Air Force as “work[ing] together with all the bodies in the IDF when the goal is clear — to destroy everything that has been touched by the hand of Hamas”.
Evidence#14: Commander in the 2908th Battalion of the Israeli army:
In a video posted online on 21 December 2023, Yair Ben David said that the Israeli army had “entered Beit Hanoun and did there as Shimon and Levi did in Nablus,” and that “[t]he entire Gaza should resemble Beit Hanoun”, referring to the city in northern Gaza which has been entirely devastated by the Israeli army..The biblical passage in issue reads: “On the third day, when they were in pain, Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons, brothers of Dinah, took each his sword, came upon the city unmolested, and slew all the males”.
Evidence#15: Israeli Army Colonel, Deputy Head of COGAT:
speaking in a video filmed in Beit Lahia — one of the areas of Gaza which appears to have suffered particularly severe levels of destruction — and broadcast on Israeli television on 4 November 2023, Colonel Yogev Bar-Sheshet stated: “[w]hoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future;” another Army Colonel recorded in the same video, Colonel Erez Eshel (Reserve), also commented that: “Vengeance is a great value. There is vengeance over what they did to us … This place will be a fallow land. They will not be able to live here”.
Evidence#16: Israeli soldiers in uniform
(H)ave been filmed on 5 December 2023 dancing, chanting and singing “May their village burn, May Gaza be erased”;482 and, two days later, on a separate occasion inside Gaza on 7 December 2023, dancing, singing and chanting, “we know our motto: there are no uninvolved civilians” and “to wipe off the seed of Amalek”. Notably, the second video of soldiers chanting that there are “no uninvolved citizens” in Gaza and that they will “wipe off the seed of Amalek” was filmed on 7 December 2023. By that date, 17,177 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed — an estimated 70 per cent of whom were women and children.
7-8 December 2023 was particularly devasting for Palestinians, with 350 people killed in the space of 24 hours — approximately one Palestinian in Gaza killed every four minutes.
Evidence#17:
This genocidal rhetoric of governmental and military officials is also widespread and commonplace amongst non-cabinet members of the Israeli Knesset (‘MKs’) who have repeatedly called for Gaza to be “wiped out”, “flatten[ed]”,486 “eras[ed]”, and “[c]rush[ed] . . . on all its inhabitants”. Parliamentarians have publicly deplored anyone “feel[ing] sorry” for the “uninvolved”
Gazans, asserting repeatedly that “there are no uninvolved”, that “[t]here are no innocents in Gaza”, that “the killers of the women and children should not be separated from the citizens of Gaza”, that “the children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves”, and that “there should be one sentence for everyone there — death”. Parliamentarians have stated “[w]e must not forget that even the ‘innocent citizens’ — the cruel and monstrous people from Gaza took an active part . . . there is no place for any humanitarian gesture — the memory of Amalek must be protested”, and that “[w]ithout hunger and thirst among the Gazan population, we will not be able to recruit collaborators”. Parliamentarians have also called for “mercilessly” bombing “from the air”, calling for the use of nuclear (“doomsday”) weapons, and a “Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48”.
Evidence#18:
Similar genocidal rhetoric is also commonplace in Israeli civil society, with genocidal messages being routinely broadcast— without censure or sanction — in Israeli media. The media reports call for Gaza to be “erase[d],” turned into a “slaughterhouse”, that “Hamas should not be eliminated” but rather “Gaza should be razed”, on the repeated claim that “[t]here are no innocents… There is no population. There are 2.5 million terrorists”. One local official, reportedly called for Gaza to be “desolate and destroyed” like the Auschwitz Museum, “demonstrating the madness of the people who lived there”. Former MKs have called for a level of destruction akin to that of Dresden and Hiroshima, asserting that it would be “immoral” for the Israeli army not to show themselves to be “vengeful and cruel”. In an Israeli news interview, one former MK called for all Palestinians in Gaza to be killed saying:
“I tell you, in Gaza without exception, they are all terrorists, sons of dogs. They must be exterminated, all of them killed. We will flatten Gaza, turn them to dust, and the army will cleanse the area. Then we will start building new areas, for us, above all, for our security.”
