“Strikes on Iran ease pressure on Israel to end starvation in Gaza.” That, in case you missed it, is a recentheadline from the Guardianfrom Saturday. It’s the sort of statement that might have once shocked people but is now just another news bulletin.
Following Israel’s ‘pre-emptive strike’ on Iran earlier this month, which happened just as more people started speaking up about the genocide, attention has been averted from Gaza. But Israel’s assault on Gaza (and the West Bank), is continuing apace.
With the pressure off, the fear is that some of the most extreme voices in Israel will get exactly what they want in Gaza. Which, as retired Maj Gen Giora Eiland wrote in an Israeli paper on12 October 2023, is to turn into “a place where no human being can exist”.
To remind you of what some of these voices have planned forGaza, below is a collection of some of the more outrageous statements by Israeli lawmakers or influencers since 7 October 2023.
I’ve limited the collection to 20, but there are databases online with hundreds of statements which show a blurring of Hamas and the population of Gaza (including children) and a desire to inflict collective punishment. The end goal of all this is not the removal of Hamas from Gaza, but the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.
“All of Gaza’s infrastructures must be destroyed to its foundation and their electricity cut off immediately. The war is not against Hamas but against the state of Gaza,” said May Golan, minister for social equality and the advancement of the status of women of Israel on7 October 2023.
“Flatten everything [in Gaza] just like it is today in Auschwitz,” David Azoulay, council leader for the northern Israeli town of Metula, said in aninterviewwith an Israeliradio station, December 2023.
“[I]t’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. it’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved, it’s absolutely not true …” Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, said at a press conference on 13 October(in English).
“Now we all have one common goal – erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth” Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament, wrote on X7 October 2023. Vaturi also wrote: “The war will never end if we don’t expel everyone.” (2 November 2023) and “To wipe out Gaza. Nothing else will satisfy us … Don’t leave a single child there, expel all the remaining ones in the end, so they have no chance of recovery.” (9 October 2023)
“The children and women must be separated and the adults in Gaza must be eliminated. We are being too considerate,” Vaturi said during an interview withKol BaRama radioin February 2025, when he alsocalled Palestinians“subhumans” and said the West Bank would be turned into Gaza next.
“The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them there is but one sentence, and that is death,” Yitzhak Kroizer, a member of national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party, said in a radio interview. This did not get much international coverage but was cited in the lettersent to the attorney generalat the end of 2023 accusing the country’s judicial authorities of ignoring incitement to genocide.
“Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything,” Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, saidOctober 2023. (Gallant was in this position at the time of the statement but is no longer in government)
“I’m not sure you’re speaking for us when you say we want to treat every child and every woman. I hope you don’t stand behind that statement either. When fighting a group like this, the distinctions that exist in a normal world don’t exist,” said Likud parliament member Amit Halevi in the Knessest, in response to a statement from an Israeli doctor saying suffering children should get painkillers,May 2025.
“The children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves,” said Meirav Ben-Ari from Yair Lapid’sopposition party Yesh Atidin response to a Palestinian lawmaker bemoaning the loss of civilian life on16 October 2023.
“There should be 2 goals for this victory: 1. There is no more Muslim land in the Land of Israel ... After we make it the land of IL, Gaza should be left as a monument, like Sodom …” said Likud member of the Knesset Amit Halevi on16 October 2023.
“They [the children] are our enemies,” said Simcha Rothman, a member of the Knesset for the National Religious party, part of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. Rothman was responding to a question from aChannel 4 (UK) interviewer asking “the children are your enemies?”
The following statements were all made on Channel 14: a far-right TV station that used to be a niche outlet but has morphed into one of the most watched news sources in Israel. Three civil rights organization have asked for an investigation into Channel 14 for its normalization of genocidal statements.
“This is clearly not a matter of a few isolated voices saying outrageous things in the heat of the moment,” Ran Cohen, the director of the Israeli Democratic bloc said in a statement to the Guardian. “The pattern of incitement emerging from Channel 14 is systematic, sustained, and orchestrated – not incidental. We have documented hundreds of statements, many delivered by regular hosts and guests, broadcast daily into Israeli homes and directly watched by soldiers. The line between media and war propaganda has been erased.”
“If the goal of this operation is not destruction, occupation, expulsion, and settlement, then we have accomplished nothing,” said former member of the Israeli Knesset, Moshe Feiglin, on12 October 2023.
“Erase Gaza completely, don’t leave a single person there” said singer Eyal Golan, on 15 October 2023. Since making a number of statements like this, Golan has gone on to perform concerts in Europe.
“We are coming. We are coming. We are coming to Gaza. We are coming to Lebanon. We will come to Iran. We will come to every place [...] We will annihilate the enemy. We will return the Middle East to a situation where Arabs are terrified of Jews [...] we will come to annihilate you [emphasizes]. To a-n-n-i-h-i-l-a- t-e. Annihilate. Pass this on, share this video so all your friends can see what we are about to do to you,” said the anchor of Channel 14’s morning show, Shai Golden, 17 October 2023.
“The enemy is not Hamas, but Gaza. The enemy is not Fatah, but the Arabs of the West Bank. And they are not willing to accept this because the approach to dealing with this enemy, called ‘Gaza,’ needs to be completely different [...] Similar to Chechnya, where the Russians flattened it to the extent that the Chechens realized: it’s not worth thinking with them [...] There are no innocents. When you say ‘population’, there is no population. There are two and a half million terrorists [...] When there are no innocents in Gaza, there’s no point in ‘roof knocking’. Because everyone is a terrorist,” said Eliahu Yusian, who presents himself as an expert and commentator on Arab affairs. He is a frequent guest on Channel 14, was a guest on the show The Patriots and said all the above without interruption on29 October 2023.
“I keep looking beyond the military objectives, which is nice, but in the end, there’s something beyond the military objectives, and that’s the strategy. It’s about breaking the spirit of the Gazan public, and things are happening there,” Shimon Riklin said on 21 February 2024.
“… every day we’re killing 100 terrorists? There are two and a half million terrorists there!” panelist Eliahu Yusian said on 24 February 2024.
“Regarding what Boaz mentioned, in the first day or two, we should have killed 100,000 Gazans [...] Only a few are possibly human there. Only a few are possibly human there. Over 90% are terrorists and are involved! Not uninvolved, there’s no such thing as uninvolved,” political commentator Danny Neuman said on journalist Boaz Golan’s show on 6 May 2024.
“The destruction in Gaza gives me a good feeling. Gaza is in a state of annihilation. Many buildings no longer exist in the landscape. The destruction machine must keep working so it’s clear they have nowhere to return to. Despair as a work plan,” Yinon Magal said on the show The Patriots reading a tweet by a reservist soldier named Dvir Luger on 3 August 2024.
“Gaza deserves death. The 2.6 million terrorists in Gaza deserve death! … Men, women, and children – in every way possible, we must simply carry out a Holocaust on them – yes, read that again – H-O-L-O-C-A-U-S-T! For me, gas chambers. Train cars. And other cruel forms of death for these Nazis. Without fear, without hesitation – simply crush, eradicate, slaughter, flatten, dismantle, smash, shatter …. Gaza deserves death. Let there be a Holocaust in Gaza,” said Elad Barashi, a TV producer affiliated with Channel 14, on 27 February 2025. in apost on Xwhich was later deleted.
It’s clear now that nothing will shame the West into stopping Israel from carrying out its “total victory” in Gaza. But I’ve written this to serve as yet another reminder that we all knew what was coming. Nobody can feign ignorance. Nobody can pretend they didn’t know.
Arwa Mahdwai is a Guardian US columnist