National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of the most powerful figures in the Israeli government, is facing criticism, including from some strong supporters of Israel, after he called for the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza during an interview that surfaced on Sunday.

The far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet rarely hides his desire to ethnically cleanse the exclave of Palestinians and replace them with Israeli settlers. But these comments, which he made to a former Israeli captive taken during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, were even more explicit and violent than usual.

He said he’s pushed for Israeli forces to carry out operations every day that “kill 30 or 40” people in Gaza and go beyond “those who pose a danger… at that particular moment."

“There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people,” Ben-Gvir said, criticizing a recent drawdown of Israeli attacks.

Ben-Gvir, who runs Israel’s prisons and police, said killing Palestinians in greater numbers would “encourage” civilians in Gaza to leave so that Israel can fully conquer the strip, allowing it to be colonized by Jewish settlers.

“I see all of Gaza as ours," the minister said. He said that Israel, which has already pushed past last October’s ceasefire line to occupy nearly 70% of Gaza, should move “as fast as possible” to take over the rest of the territory.

Ben-Gvir said, “We enter all of Gaza, settle all of Gaza, encourage migration.”

The comments were met with condemnation in the West, including from some strong defenders of Israel.

Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who has consistently voted to provide weapons to Israel despite growing calls within her party to block some arms sales, said Ben-Gvir’s comments were “horrific and completely indefensible.”

“Anyone advocating for acts of violence against innocent civilians should not be in an official government position,” Rosen said. “I believe Ben-Gvir must resign, and I urge Prime Minister Netanyahu to denounce these remarks and reaffirm to the world that this is not the government’s position.”

Democratic Majority for Israel, a group focused on maintaining support for Israel within the US Democratic Party, stated similarly that Ben-Gvir’s comments were “heinous and indefensible” and called for him to be expelled from Netanyahu’s government. However, the group also stressed that Ben-Gvir’s position “is not Israeli government policy.”

Technically, this is true, but only in the sense that the Israeli government’s actions toward Gaza have actually been considerably more violent than the kill quota of “30 to 40” per day prescribed by Ben-Gvir. Since the genocidal war began in October 2023, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Based on the ministry’s official tallies, which independent expert analyses have found to be an undercount, around 92 people were killed on average per day between October 2023 and the ceasefire in October 2025.

Data from the Israeli army, analyzed in 2025 by +972 magazine, suggests that more than 80% of those killed were civilians. During the first two years of the conflict, the Government Media Office in Gaza reported that more than 20,000 children had been killed, more than one every hour.

While some called on Netanyahu to stand against Ben-Gvir’s especially violent rhetoric, the prime minister himself has also explicitly pushed for genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza, at one point invoking the Israelites’ ancient foe, the Amalekites, and God’s demand in the Hebrew Bible that the Israelites exterminate them.

Along with the similarly extreme finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, Ben-Gvir regularly draws criticism among liberal supporters of Israel for his particularly explicit comments advocating violence against Palestinians and other enemies of Israel and for enacting policies that have accelerated their displacement in the West Bank and allowed violent Israeli settlers to act with impunity.

But as critics pointed out, there is little evidence that Netanyahu will heed the calls from liberal Zionists to boot Ben-Gvir out of his coalition or discipline him in any way.

“And if he doesn’t, which he won’t, of course, does DFMI then support sanctions on Israel and restrictions on US arms sales?” asked commentator Mehdi Hasan in response to the statement from Democratic Majority for Israel. “If not, why not?”

Noting that the group has consistently opposed proposals to cut off weapons aid to Israel, he asked, “Why would you want to sell weapons to ‘heinous’ people?”

Political analyst Omar Baddar suggested that the problem many pro-Israel critics have with Ben-Gvir is not the policy he espouses, but the public relations headaches he creates.

Baddar said, “What’s ‘extremist’ about Ben Gvir is that he says out loud what Israel’s mainstream political establishment prefers to do quietly under the false pretense of ‘fighting terrorism.’”

---

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.