Israel’s far-right national security minister has reportedly asked whether the military could kill some of the Palestinians taken captive instead of arresting them — the latest comment by one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s multiple extremist cabinet members that dehumanizes residents of Gaza.
The comments by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir were revealed Friday by Hebrew outlets Channel 12 and Ynet, and translated to English by the Times of Israel.
The Israeli Defense Force’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, briefed ministers at a security cabinet meeting last week about recent operations in Gaza, where Israel has been carrying out a military offensive for almost seven months now in response to Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 people and captured roughly 250.
During the briefing, Halevi said that hundreds of Palestinians were recently arrested after surrendering to the military.
“Why are there so many arrests?” Ben-Gvir allegedly asked. “Can’t you kill some? Do you want to tell me they all surrender? What are we to do with so many arrested? It’s dangerous for the soldiers.”
Halevi was perplexed at the question, according to the Times of Israel, responding: “Dangerous for who?”
“We don’t shoot people who come out with their hands up. We shoot those who fight us,” the IDF official reportedly told Ben-Gvir. “There’s no dilemma here. Those who surrender, we arrest.”
According to a translation of the conversation, Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter told Ben-Gvir during the meeting that “I don’t know whether you’re a minister in Israel or a different country.” Dichter, a former director of the Shin Bet security service, is himself considered one of Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet members.
Friday was not the first time that Ben-Gvir reportedly called for executing Palestinian captives. Earlier this month, the minister posted on social media that applying the death penalty to some captives would help address the issue of prison overcrowding. The comment came after his proposal to build nearly a thousand additional “prison places” for Palestinian captives was approved.
“The additional construction will allow the prison service to take in more terrorists and will bring a partial solution to the overcrowding crisis,” he wrote, according to a translation. “The death penalty for terrorists is the right solution to the overcrowding problem, until then — glad that the government approved the proposal I brought.”
In February, Ben-Gvir also called for the IDF to shoot Palestinian women and children in Gaza in order to “protect” the troops.
“There cannot be a situation in which children and women approach us from the wall,” he told Halevi, according to Israeli media. “Anyone who approaches in order to harm security must receive a bullet, otherwise we will see Oct. 7 again.”
Under international law, killing prisoners of war is considered a war crime. Israel already stands accused at the international level of committing genocide against Palestinians, which it vehemently denies. But the indiscriminate killing that has led to more than 34,000 dead Gazans, the settler violence in the occupied West Bank, the blocking of life-saving aid and the dehumanizing language used to describe Palestinians has drawn the ire of human rights groups and a growing number of countries — including Israel’s biggest ally and weapons supplier, the United States.
The Biden administration has made its position clear that it opposes Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet members — including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Dichter and Ben-Gvir — who call for the expulsion of Palestinians in Gaza and the return of Jewish settlements. Ben-Gvir specifically faced anger from within the Israeli government in February after telling The Wall Street Journal that Biden is hindering their military campaign, and that former President Donald Trump would allow more freedom to fight in Gaza if he were in power.
With Netanyahu’s help, Ben-Gvir entered the Knesset in 2021, leading the far-right Jewish Power party. The minister is a former member of the anti-Arab Kahane movement — which Israel banned in 1998 for terrorist acts — and was convicted eight times on incitement and terrorism charges. He also looks up to Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli American settler who in 1994 gunned down 29 Palestinian worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs, a holy site in Hebron for both Muslims and Jews.
Ben-Gvir sustained minor injuries on Friday when a member of his security detail ran a red light and hit another driver, causing his vehicle to flip.