An Israeli lawyer has called for the killing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank if they refuse to live under Israeli rule or leave the territory.
Yehuda Shimon made the remarks during an interview with the BBC, published on Saturday at the Havat Gilad settlement outpost in the northern occupied West Bank.
Shimon, a lawyer affiliated with an organization representing Israelis arrested over violence against Palestinians, defended attacks on Palestinian villages as acts of retaliation.
Referring to the killing of a guard from the settlement outpost during clashes between Palestinians and Israelis in the village of Tal, he called for reprisals against several Palestinian communities.
“After they killed one Israeli, we need to kill all the people in Tal and Sarra, even Jit and Farata,” he claimed.
Shimon also alleged that the life of one Jewish person was worth “10 million Palestinians.” When a BBC reporter described the statement as racist, he responded by saying, “This is the truth.”
He also criticized the Israeli cabinet and military, slamming them for failing to use sufficient force against Palestinians.
“The Israeli [cabinet] and the Israeli army… don’t kill the Palestinians, they just separate the people. Afterwards, because they don’t kill Palestinians, the Palestinians kill us,” he further claimed.
Shimon further said that Palestinians should be removed from what he called an “all-Israeli territory”, including the Gaza Strip.
“If we don’t wake up and remove them all from this area, from all areas of Israel, even Gaza too, they will come back again,” he said.
He concluded by saying that Palestinians had only two choices if they wished to remain alive: accept Israeli rule and “live quietly,” or leave for other Arab or Muslim countries.
“If you don’t want to make peace with us, and you don’t want to get out, I don’t have a choice: I must kill you, and I will kill you all,” Shimon said.
As reported by the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, there were 3,488 incidents of aggression by illegal settlers in the West Bank in the first half of this year, causing the deaths of 17 Palestinians.
A ceasefire that took effect last October ended Israel’s two-year genocidal war on Gaza that began on October 7, 2023.
The bloody onslaught killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and injured over 174,000 others, most of them women and children, and caused widespread destruction affecting 90% of civilian infrastructure. The UN estimates reconstruction costs at approximately $70 billion.
At least 1,209 Palestinians have been killed and 3,943 others injured in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
