‘Gaza must be eliminated': Israel's airwaves are filled with pro-genocide propaganda
'Strikes on Iran ease pressure on Israel to end starvation in Gaza.' That, in case you missed it, is a recent headline from the Guardian from 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 on 12 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 for Gaza, 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 on 7 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 an interview with an Israeli radio 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 X 7 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 with Kol BaRama radio in February 2025, when he also called 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 letter sent to the attorney general at 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, said October 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's opposition party Yesh Atid in response to a Palestinian lawmaker bemoaning the loss of civilian life on 16 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 on 16 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 a Channel 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, on 12 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 on 29 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 a post on X which 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
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
As the BBC airs punk band's shocking chants, STEVE POLLARD asks: Has baiting Jews become the new national pastime?
The Glastonbury music festival bills itself as a celebration of all that is good in the world, with great artists communing with a crowd of 200,000 self-styled progressives, for whom the festival is a chance to wallow in their own goodness and smug sense of superiority. But nothing better illustrates the darkness that has entered the soul of today's progressives than the crowd's response yesterday to punk duo Bob Vylan, whose screams of 'Free, free Palestine ' and 'Death, death to the IDF' were chanted back with such fervour that the scene was like a 2025 version of Hitler's Nuremberg Rallies. The chant was 'Death, death to the IDF', but what they meant – because the IDF is the army of the world's only Jewish state – was 'Death, death to the Jews'. Imagine being a Jew at Glastonbury, knowing that you are hated by almost everyone around you. In Sasha Baron Cohen's satirical film, Borat, the character describes a game, 'Hunt the Jew'. Everyone laughed at that when the film came out in 2006. But yesterday's Glastonbury chanting showed that its satire is all too pointed. Imagine, I ask you, being a Jew in Britain. In the 20 months since 1,200 Jews were massacred by Hamas in Israel, the UK has seen a leap in anti-Semitic incidents. Between January and June last year there was a 41 per cent increase in assaults on Jews. But that is almost the least of it. The biggest impact in Britain of the October 7 attack has been the unleashing of this torrent of Jew-hate – the likes of which we saw yesterday. Every other week there are hate marches in London and elsewhere with chants to ' globalise the intifada' – to kill Jews, in other words. There is open support for Hamas and Hezbollah, not least by Kneecap, another band performing at Glastonbury. There is pure hatred and poison. But for Jews in Britain, the real point about all this is the double standard. Can you imagine if someone had stood on that stage and screamed 'Death to Muslims'? There would certainly – and quite rightly – have been anger from the crowd. But when it is Jews who are the target, they cheer. And where are the police? Whatever your views of Lucy Connolly's imprisonment after her Southport riot tweets, the double standard is shocking. The lead singer of Bob Vylan incited a mob. Will he be arrested, charged and prosecuted? There is, I suggest, not the slightest chance if the past 20 months of open anti-Semitism is anything to go by. For those who make a regular pilgrimage to Glastonbury, it is more than just a music festival – is a carnival of light and peace. Not for Jews. Palestinian flags fly everywhere. Leaders of Palestine Action – shortly and rightly to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation – are given a platform to spread their bile. The now infamous Kneecap rapper J J O Dochartaigh wore a 'We are all Palestine Action' T-shirt on stage and led a Free Palestine chant. Glastonbury, in reality, reflects the state of modern progressivism – a poisonous cocktail of anti-Israeli prejudice, support for Islamist terror and a moral calculus so warped that Nazi-style chanting is seen as upstanding and worthy.
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Israeli embassy 'deeply disturbed' by Bob Vylan's 'death to the IDF' Glastonbury chant
The Israeli embassy has said it's "deeply disturbed" by chants of "death to the IDF" at Glastonbury - as police also investigate the incident. Video shows one of the members of Bob Vylan shouting the slogan into the mic and some of the crowd joining in. The duo were performing ahead of a performance by Kneecap, the Irish act who the prime minister said should be ditched from the line-up. "The Embassy of Israel in the United Kingdom is deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage at the Glastonbury Festival," a statement said. It said slogans like Saturday's chant "advocate for the dismantling of the State of Israel". The post on X added: "When such messages are delivered before tens of thousands of festivalgoers and met with applause, it raises serious concerns about the normalisation of extremist language and the glorification of violence." Avon and Somerset Police said they are looking at whether a criminal offence was committed. Bob Vylan also performed in front of a screen reading quoting a claim that Israel's actions in Gaza amount to genocide. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has spoken to BBC boss Tim Davie for an "urgent explanation" about what due diligence it carried out into Bob Vylan. A spokesman said the government strongly condemned the "threatening comments" by the group, whose X bio describes them as a "punk/rap/alt thing". A BBC statement said: "Some of the comments made during Bob Vylan's set were deeply offensive. "During this live stream on iPlayer, which reflected what was happening on stage, a warning was issued on screen about the very strong and discriminatory language. "We have no plans to make the performance available on demand." Tory leader Kemi Badenoch re-posted a clip of the incident and called it "grotesque". "Violence against Jews isn't edgy. The West is playing with fire if we allow this sort of behaviour to go unchecked," she said on X. A statement from Glastonbury Festival said it "does not condone hate speech or incitement to violence of any kind from its performers". Irish group Kneecap followed Bob Vylan - with the broadcaster not carrying their performance live amid concern over what they might do or say. However, it's understood their show will be made available on demand after a review. One of its members, Liam Og O hAnnaidh, was charged with a terror offence in May after being accused of displaying a flag in support of proscribed terror group Hezbollah at a gig. Bandmate Naoise O Caireallain told the packed Glastonbury crowd they should "start a riot outside the courts", before clarifying: "No riots just love and support, and support for Palestine." O hAnnaidh - also known as Mo Chara - wore a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf for Saturday's set and told fans he was a "free man"
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Tel Aviv blasts BBC for failing to cut hour-long live broadcast of punk band's vile outburst - as police face demands to arrest Bob Vylan singer who led 'death to Israeli soldiers' chants at Glastonbury
The BBC and Glastonbury provoked outrage tonight when a pro-Palestine punk act called for the death of Israeli soldiers during a live broadcast from the festival. In appalling scenes condemned by the British and Israeli governments, the lead singer of the duo Bob Vylan led a crowd of thousands in a vile chant of 'death, death to the IDF' – the Israel Defence Forces. The singer, who keeps his identity secret, also led a chant of 'free, free Palestine ', and declared 'from the river to the sea Palestine… will be free' – regarded by many in the Jewish community as a call for Israel's elimination. The entire episode was live-streamed on the BBC iPlayer. The corporation was lambasted for failing to cut the broadcast immediately after the anti-Semitic chanting. Shockingly, its live stream continued for another 40 minutes until the end of Bob Vylan's performance. The incident prompted calls for the band members to be arrested over claims they had incited violence. Avon and Somerset Police last night said they were examining video evidence and investigating if any offence had been committed. The broadcast plunged the BBC into a major crisis with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy demanding 'an urgent explanation' from BBC director-general Tim Davie into 'what due diligence it carried out ahead of the Bob Vylan performance'. A government spokesman said: 'We strongly condemn the threatening comments made by Bob Vylan at Glastonbury.' The singer, who keeps his identity secret, also led a chant of 'free, free Palestine ', and declared 'from the river to the sea Palestine… will be free' – regarded by many in the Jewish community as a call for Israel's elimination Lord Ian Austin – the Government's trade envoy to Israel – said: 'The police should investigate as a matter of urgency and, if necessary, arrest the band members.' Tory MP Greg Stafford said: 'If someone can be jailed for inciting racial hatred on social media, then surely this band should be investigated for inciting violence at the very least. Somerset Police should arrest them and carry out an investigation immediately.' Sharren Haskel, Israel's deputy foreign minister, also slammed the performance. She told The Mail on Sunday: 'I condemn the BBC for continuing to live-stream anti-Israel hate speech from Glastonbury. 'What do you think the BBC would have done had a performer been shouting anti-Muslim or far-Right hate speech? They would have pulled the feed. 'But because the target is Israel – let's be honest, because it's Jews – it's tolerated, even broadcast. This is clearly incitement.' The BBC later pulled the offending incident from its footage on iPlayer. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch branded the comments 'grotesque', adding: 'Glorifying violence against Jews isn't edgy. The cultural establishment needs to wake up to the fact this isn't protest, it's incitement.' Danny Cohen, former director of BBC Television, said: 'That something like this might happen could easily have been foreseen by the BBC and measures could have been taken to prevent its broadcast. 'This is a very serious failure, and further evidence that BBC management are blind to their responsibility to Britain's Jewish community.' Bob Vylan, who formed eight years ago in London, refuse to reveal their real names because of what they call the 'surveillance state'. Instead the singer calls himself Bobby Vylan and the drummer Bobbie Vylan. Addressing the crowd of around 30,000, Bobby said he had to be 'careful' because their performance was 'live on the BBC'. He then, however, led the 'free, free Palestine' chant, then changing it to 'death, death to the IDF'. 'Hell, yeah, from the river to the sea Palestine must, will be, Inshallah, it will be free,' he added. The singer also backed controversial Northern Irish band Kneecap, who were following them on the West Holts stage, by describing music executives who called for the group to be banned as 'Zionists '. In another hugely embarrassing blow for the BBC, he also used the highly offensive c-word. May Golan, Israel's minister for social equality, said: 'Perhaps someone should tell that anti-Semitic band what happened to the hundreds of innocent people at Israel's Nova music festival who were murdered, raped, butchered, and kidnapped by savage monsters.' The BBC decided not to stream Kneecap live. Instead an edited version of the performance was due to be put on the iPlayer. It came ten days after Kneecap member Liam O'hAnnaidh, 27, appeared in court charged with a terror offence, prompting the Prime Minister to say it was 'not appropriate' for the band to be playing Glastonbury. Kneecap started their performance this afternoon by chanting 'F*** Keir Starmer'. They also spoke out in support of Palestine Action, which the government wants to proscribe as a terror group. Glastonbury had said all were welcome at the festival but added it 'does not condone hate speech or incitement to violence of any kind from its performers.' Bob Vylan is the UK's self-proclaimed 'most violent boy band' whose singer attended his first pro-Palestine protest at the age of 15 and whose music fuses punk, grime and hip hop Bob Vylan is the UK's self-proclaimed 'most violent boy band' whose singer attended his first pro-Palestine protest at the age of 15. At Glastonbury today, Bobby Vylan said: 'We're seeing the UK and the US be complicit in war crimes and genocide happening over there to the Palestinian people... Anybody with any moral compass can surely see that what is happening over there in Gaza is a tragedy. Former Match Of The Day host Gary Lineker, 64, also issued a call to 'Free Palestine' during an appearance at a discussion event at Glastonbury yesterday.
