Palestine Tet – 31 – Fighting Amalek in Gaza: What Israelis Say and Western Media Ignore

Israel’s allies have claimed that it “is not deliberately trying to kill civilians” (US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby) and is “taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians” (UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak).

Such claims are hard to square with the massive devastation Israel has inflicted. As of 10 November, over 11,000 people in Gaza were reported killed, including more than 4,500 children, and at least 45 percent of housing units were reported damaged or destroyed.

They are hard to square with the findings of leading human rights organisations that Israel has inflicted “collective punishment” (Human Rights Watch) as part of a “criminal policy of revenge” (B’Tselem), employed “[s]tarvation … as a weapon of war” (Oxfam), and carried out “unlawful … attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties” (Amnesty International).

They are hard to square with Israel’s previous assaults on Gaza, which were calibrated to “punish, humiliate, and terrorise” the civilian population by deploying an “insane amount of firepower” that caused “destruction on a whole other level”. In its “previous wars on Gaza”, Amnesty International recalled, “Israel has a horrific track record of committing war crimes with impunity”.

Finally, claims that Israel is striving to protect civilians in Gaza are most hard to square with how Israeli officials have presented the current onslaught:

• “We are imposing a complete siege on the city of Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly” (Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, 9 October)
• “This is not about surgical strikes and military infrastructure anymore … This means we will obliterate civilian infrastructure as well. Apartment buildings will be toppled” (IDF officer, 9 October)
• “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy” (IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari, 10 October)
• “Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents. There will be no buildings” (Israeli defence official, 10 October)
• “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 … The entire population of Gaza will either move to Egypt or move to the Gulf” (Advisor to Defence Minister Gallant, former Head of the National Security Council and former IDF operations chief Giora Eiland, 13 October)

To serve as a reference, we have compiled the following list of revealing statements by Israeli officials, former officials, and politicians about the ongoing massacre in Gaza. Translations from Hebrew have been verified. Quotes are presented in date order, starting with the most recent. The list will be updated periodically.

[Last update: 12 November 2023]

Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Nissim Vaturi MK (Likud, governing), 12 November: “We need to put them [the Palestinians] on boats and send them to wherever will be good for them. They’re wanted in Scotland? We’ll hand them over.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, 11 November: “I am saying here to the citizens of Lebanon, I already see the citizens in Gaza walking with white flags along the coast and moving south … If it [Hezbollah] makes mistakes of this kind, the ones who will pay the price are first of all the citizens of Lebanon. What we are doing in Gaza we know how to do in Beirut”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 10 November: “We will hold Gaza after the war too, we will not trust international forces”

Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, 5 November: “there are no uninvolved [civilians] in Gaza”.

Reporter: “Should we drop an atomic bomb on Gaza?”

Eliyahu: “That’s one way”³

Yitzhak Kroizer MK (Otzma Yehudit, governing), 5 November: “the Gaza Strip should be flattened, and there should be one sentence for everyone there—death. We have to wipe the Gaza Strip off the map. There are no innocents there”

MK Amit Halevi MK (Likud, governing), 1 November: “it is totally unacceptable that the war on [sic] Gaza will end with any Palestinian rule [there]. The main form of defeat understood by radical Islam is loss of control over land, and this must be the result [of the war]. Therefore, the first step the Knesset must pursue is to undo the law which forbids the entry of Jews into Gaza”⁶

Former head of the Knesset National Security Commission and Mossad Deputy Director Ram Ben Barak MK (Yesh Atid, opposition), 1 November: “Look, a Hamas official said a few days ago that they won’t provide for the population [of Gaza], the population are all refugees and the UN should provide for them, right? There was such a statement from someone in Hamas? Well, if everyone in Gaza is a refugee, let’s scatter them around the world. Let’s scatter them around the world. There are 2.5 million people there, every country will take in 20,000 people, 100 countries. It’s humane, it’s an obvious [solution]. They are refugees anyway, it is better to be a refugee in Canada than a refugee in Gaza. If the world really wants to solve this problem, it can solve it”⁷

Galit Distel-Atbaryan MK (Likud, governing), 1 November: “Hate the enemy. Hate the monsters. […] Spend your energy on one thing; wiping Gaza off the face of the earth. Let the Gazan monsters fly to the southern fence and flee into Egyptian territory. Or have them die. And have them die horribly. Gaza must be wiped out. And fire and billows of smoke must be upon the heads of the Nazis in Judea and Samaria. Jewish wrath that will cause the ground to shake around the world. We require a revengeful and cruel IDF. Anything less than that is immoral. Simply immoral”

Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu, 1 November: “The north of the strip—more beautiful than ever. Blowing up and flattening everything, simply a delight for the eyes. (A soldier in Gaza). We must speak about the day after. In my mind’s eye, we give away real estate to anyone who fought for Gaza over the years, and those who were evacuated from Gush Katif—god willing. (Without Merkhavim Muganim Dirati’im) [without the threat of rockets]”

Advisor to Defence Minister Gallant, former Head of the National Security Council and former IDF operations chief Giora Eiland, 30 October: “Hizbullah will only be deterred if it sees not only destruction in Gaza City, but a humanitarian disaster and absolute governmental chaos … Our principal challenge is to persuade our friends that only that outcome—the complete destruction of all system in Gaza and desperate distress—will also serve them in their effort to cope with Iran and its proxies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen”⁸

Former Deputy Commander IDF Gaza Division Amir Avivi, 29 October: “We are not taking any chances … When our soldiers are manoeuvring we are doing this with massive artillery, with 50 aeroplanes overhead destroying anything that moves”

Former Likud MK and former Knesset Deputy Speaker Moshe Feiglin, 27 October (?): “Do not leave a stone upon a stone in Gaza. Gaza needs to turn into Dresden … Complete incineration. No more hope … Annihilate Gaza now! Now!”¹¹

Former Israeli Ambassador to Italy and Israel Hayom columnist Dror Eydar, 26 October: “For us, there is one purpose: to destroy Gaza, to destroy this absolute evil”

Former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin, 26 October (?): “There is one and only one solution, which is to completely destroy Gaza before invading it. And when I talk about destruction, I mean destruction like it was in Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon”

Advisor to Defence Minister Gallant, former Head of the National Security Council and former IDF operations chief Giora Eiland, 25 October: “We can’t, simply can’t, give in with anything related to the entry of fuel into Gaza. Yes, the Palestinians will present [to the world] babies who died in incubators as a result of a power outage due to the lack of fuel, but still, a necessary condition for creating distress for Hamas is a lack of fuel in the entire Strip. As we have already said—[it’s] an existential war, and we are facing a situation of either us or them”

Revital “Tally” Gotlieb MK (Likud, governing), 23 October: “Without hunger and thirst among the Gazan population, we will not succeed in recruiting intelligence, [or] … in bribing people with food, drink, medicine, in order to obtain intelligence”

Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Arieh King, 17 October: “If the Prime Minister … cared, or his ministers from the State of Israel cared, there would have been 150,000 dead already in the Gaza Strip and not a single building in the Gaza Strip would have been left standing”

Former Head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, 16 October: “Currently Gaza is under siege. If you’ve heard my statements on the matter, I said ‘don’t blink’—I’ve seen [now] the first blink … —letting in water to the south of Gaza … If this was done due to pressure from the international community, which doesn’t understand that Gazan civilians went through the fence—civilians! Not just the Hamas terrorists—you’ve seen them in the pictures, completely unarmed, they didn’t have RPGs, they didn’t arrive on motorcycles, looting and participating in the deplorable murder of women and babies” [He doesn’t finish the point because the interviewer moves on to the next question, but the implication is that the civilian population of Gaza should be punished]

Meirav Ben-Ari MK (Yesh Atid, opposition), 16 October: “And the children in Gaza—the children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves!”

Gideon Sa’ar MK (Blue and White, governing), 14 October: “Gaza must be smaller by the end of the war”¹³

Energy Minister Israel Katz, 13 October: “All the civilian population in gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world”

Advisor to Defence Minister Gallant, former Head of the National Security Council and former IDF operations chief Giora Eiland, 13 October: “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. In order for this to happen, Israel needs to demand four key points with greater determination than ever before. 1) The entire population of Gaza will either move to Egypt or move to the Gulf … 2) Every vehicle in Gaza is considered a military vehicle transporting combatants. Therefore, there is no vehicular traffic, and it does not matter whether it is transporting water or other critical supplies … Israel has no choice. It is comparable to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, which led to the launch of an atomic bomb in Japan. As a result, Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist”

Unnamed Israeli defence official, 10 October: “Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents. There will be no buildings”

IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari, 10 October: “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy”

Revital “Tally” Gotliv MK (Likud, governing), 10 October: “Only an explosion that shakes the Middle East will restore this country’s dignity, strength, and security! It’s time to kiss doomsday. Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighbourhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza. Otherwise, we would have done nothing. Not with passwords, with penetrating bombs. Without mercy! Without mercy!”

Advisor to Defence Minister Gallant, former Head of the National Security Council and former IDF operations chief Giora Eiland, 10 October: “Israel closed the water supply to Gaza, but there are many wells in Gaza, which contain water which they treat locally, because originally they contain salt. If the energy shortage in Gaza makes it so that they stop pumping out water, that’s good. Otherwise we have to attack these water treatment plants in order to create a situation of thirst and hunger in Gaza, and I would say, signal [sic] an unprecedented economical and humanitarian crisis”

Interviewer: Giora, I want to check that I understand correctly. You are saying—get the residents of Gaza into thirst, into hunger. These are the terms you are using?

“You understood correctly…. Exactly 90 years ago, 1933, Hitler was democratically elected in Germany, with huge support from the German population, and therefore when he started a war of extermination against the whole world, the world justly fought against the country of Germany, including through indiscriminate bombing of the population. When Japan started a war in Pearl Harbour, which is by the way pretty similar to what happened to us in terms of the shock, the US took off the gloves, and at a certain stage was not afraid to use the ultimate weapon, and it was the entire Japanese people, not the leadership, who paid the price…. This is a reality for us or them. Hamas is not a terror organisation, it is the representative of a State, the population of which supported and [still] supports Hamas, which is its authentic representative, and therefore this population is now suffering, and should suffer, a price that will make it change its mentality”

Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Nissim Vaturi MK (Likud, governing), 9 October: “Erase Gaza. Nothing else will satisfy us … Do not leave a child there[,] expel anyone who remains there when it ends, so that they won’t re-establish”

Unnamed IDF officer, 9 October: “This is not about surgical strikes and military infrastructure anymore … This means we will obliterate civilian infrastructure as well. Apartment buildings will be toppled. Hezbollah feeds off our apprehension to land a decisive strike, which means we will exhibit the exact opposite to avoid opening a northern front”

Energy Minister Israel Katz, 9 October: “I ordered to immediately cut off the water supply from Israel to Gaza. Electricity and fuel were cut off yesterday. What was will not be”

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, 9 October: “We are imposing a complete siege on the city of Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly”¹⁷

Revital “Tally” Gotliv MK (Likud, governing), 9 October: “Jericho missile! Jericho missile! A strategic alert, before we consider introducing our forces. A doomsday weapon! This is my opinion”

Advisor to Defence Minister Gallant, former Head of the National Security Council and former IDF operations chief Giora Eil