Ben-Gvir made the remarks during a podcast interview with Rom Braslavski, a former Israeli captive held in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of October 2023. The episode surfaced on Sunday and was widely circulated by Palestinian media outlets.
During the discussion, the minister described Palestinians in Gaza as unworthy of life and said they were “not even people,” calling for their targeted killing.
“There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people,” he said.
The comments are the latest in a series of controversial statements by Ben-Gvir, a key member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration who oversees Israel’s police and prison services.
The far-right minister’s remarks come as Israel approaches parliamentary elections scheduled for October 27.
Ben-Gvir also criticized Netanyahu’s decision to scale back military operations in Gaza under the current “ceasefire”, throwing his weight behind a return to targeted assassinations that would go beyond people considered active threats.
Elsewhere in the interview, he told Braslavski that he would seek to allow him to participate in executions carried out under Israel’s recently enacted death penalty law for Palestinians convicted in military courts of deadly attacks against Israeli settlers.
Braslavski made a personal request to the minister, saying he wished to execute convicted prisoners himself.
“I don’t want a rope; I want a button on a gun. With my own hands, I will execute every terrorist” in Israel, he added.
MNA
