https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrco...

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session56/a-hrc-56-crp-4.pdf

Incitement by Israeli political and military leaders to violence, vengeance andcollective punishment against the Palestinian population

33. The Commission has documented repeated public messages containingincitement published by Israeli officials. Messages include calling for violenceand the killing of Palestinians, the erasure of the Gaza Strip, vengeance,collective punishment, noting that there are no innocent civilians in the GazaStrip, planning for new Israeli settlements on the rubble of the Gaza Stri p andcalling for the removal of Palestinians from Gaza to third states.

34. Statements calling on Israel to exact vengeance against Hamas weremade as early as 7 October. At a press conference held in the early afternoonof 7 October, Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to inflict “mighty vengeance”on “all of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, thatwicked city, we will turn them into rubble. I say to residents of Gaza: leavenow because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Although Netanyahu’sstatement carefully directed the call for vengeance at ‘Hamas locations’, hisuse of the phrase ’wicked city’ in the same statement, implies that he sees thewhole city of Gaza as responsible and a target for vengeance.35. On 29 October, Brigadier General David Bar Khalifa, Commander ofthe 36 Armored Division, invoked divine intervention in a call for his soldiersto be guided by general vengeance in their military operation. In a handwrittenletter to his soldiers, he said, “What has been will be no more! We shall go outto it [the enemy] in war, we shall pulverize every accursed plot of land fromwhich it came, we shall destroy it and the memory of it … and we shall notreturn until it is annihilated, and [God] doth render vengeance to hisadversaries, and doth make expiation for the land of His people… The Lordwill give strength to his people, and He shall guard thy going out and thycoming in, from this time forth and forever. This is our war, today is our turn.Here we are!”36. On 4 November, Colonel Erez Eshel, a senior ISF officer, interviewedfor an Israeli news channel from Beit Lahia, said, “vengeance is a great value.There is vengeance for what they did to us... in 100 years they will know thatyou don’t mess with the Jews. It will take so many years to revive from thisblow… this place will be a fallow land. They will not be able to live here.” Inthe same news segment Colonel Yogev Bar Sheshet, Deputy Head of the IsraeliCivil Administration, said, “first of all, this shows that the Hamas leaders donot think about their people. They think about terror. They damage their people.We the Jews, we take care of ourselves. Whoever harms Jews, w hoever harmsIsraelis, we will destroy their homes, we will kill them wherever they are. Itwill not pay to harm the people of Israel - this is our message. There is nothingleft. Whoever will come back here afterwards, if they come back, will seescorched earth, no houses, no agriculture, no future.”37. On 8 November 2023, a video published on X showed soldiers from theBinyamin Brigade dancing and singing, “let your villages burn”. An ISFspokesperson responded to this incident, saying “The conduct of the soldiers isnot consistent with the IDF’s orders and its values. The incident will beinvestigated and dealt with accordingly through disciplinary action.” On 4January 2024, a video published on X depicted an ISF soldier with a Torahscroll in his hands noting, “We are now on the ruins of Gaza, with the grace ofGod. These Nazis will pay the price for what they did to the people of Israeland the country of Israel. We will destroy the Hamas. Do you see this burnedhouse? Every house here will burn. Every house had an RPG. They will payfor what they did. The people of Israel will win and God will save us fromthem, with the grace of God”. The Commission is not aware of any disciplinaryactions undertaken by ISF against these personnel.38. Several statements by Israeli officials advocated for collectivepunishment against the Palestinian people as a whole or the population of Gazain particular. Some statements recognized that there was a difference betweencivilians and combatants but urged that all Gazans should be punished for theactions of the militants on 7 October 2023; other statements made nodistinction between civilians and combatants and decreed one punishment forall. On 14 October 2023, President Issac Herzog stated, “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians whowere not aware and not involved. It is absolutely not true.”

39. On 7 October 2023 the Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure,Energy, and Water, Israel Katz, ordered the cessation of electricity supply toGaza, saying “What was – will no longer be.” After receiving an instructionfrom the Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, Katz issued a directive instructingthe Israel Electric Company to stop selling electricity to the Palestinianauthority in the Gaza Strip. A few days later, on 15 October 2023, Katz sharedsatellite images revealing that the Gaza Strip was illuminated on the 6 Octoberbut nearly devoid of lights on 12 October. Katz commented, “Electricity hasbeen cut off in Gaza, highlighting the devastation inflicted by Hamas on thestrip’s civilians”. Katz made a clear distinction between civilians and Hamascombatants, but announced, enacted and implemented policies that punishedthe entire population for the actions of Hamas.

40. On 17 October 2023, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli Minister of NationalSecurity and a member of the Committee of Ministers on National SecurityAffairs, linked Gaza’s access to humanitarian aid to the release of hostages heldby Hamas. Ben-Gvir wrote on X, “As long as Hamas does not release thecaptives in its hands, the only thing that needs to enter Gaza is hundreds of tonsof explosive material from the Air Force, (and) not one gram of humanitarianaid”.

41. On 3 November 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu published a letter tothe Israeli soldiers and commanders in the war, in which he wrote, “Rememberwhat Amalek did to you... This is a war between the sons of light and the sonsof darkness…We constantly remember the sights of the horrific massacre onthat Simchat Torah Shabbat, October 7, 2023.” The descendants of Amalek, theAmalekites, were enemies of the Israelites in the Hebrew bible. In the Book ofSamuel, God tells the Israelites, ‘Now go and attack Amalek, and utterlydestroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman,child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’22 The Commission notesthat, in invoking Amalek in his speech, Netanyahu strengthened the idea thatIsrael’s war in Gaza is akin to the holy war commanded against Amalek.

42. On 5 November, Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu stated in a radiointerview that dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza was one of the options inIsrael’s war on Gaza. He also noted that “there is no such thing as non-involvedin Gaza”. He was widely criticized for his statement and Prime MinisterNetanyahu suspended him from Government meetings.

43. On 11 November 2023, Avi Dichter, the Minister of Agriculture and amember of the Committee of Ministers on National Security Affairs, wasinterviewed for Channel 12 News, where he was questioned about thecomparison between scenes of residents of northern Gaza Strip evacuatingsouth and scenes of the Nakba. Dichter responded that the current situation wasakin to rolling out “Gaza’s Nakba”, emphasizing the operational impracticalityof conducting a war within the Gaza Strip, particularly when civilians wereamid the conflict. When pressed further about the term “Gaza’s Nakba” ,Dichter affirmed that it is “Gaza’s Nakba of 2023”, indicating that this was howhe wanted the situation to ultimately be concluded. Regarding the potentialreturn of residents to Gaza City, Dichter expressed doubt that the Palestinianscould return to Gaza City, “I don’t know how it will ultimately end, rememberthat Gaza City sits on a third of the (Gaza) strip, half of the population but thethird of the strip."

44. On 3 January 2024, Likud Member of the Knesset Moshe Saada said inan interview to channel 14, “today, it is clear to everyone that we have toannihilate all Gazans”.