Israeli Local Council Head Calls to 'Flatten Gaza Like Auschwitz Today' in Radio Interview
Local council head in northern Israel calls for Gazans to be 'loaded up' on Israeli navy ships and taken to Lebanese refugee camps, with Gaza turned into a museum 'so the whole world will learn what Israel can do'
The city of Gaza December 2023. (Photo inserted)
Dec 18, 2023
The head of an Israeli local authority called for the Gaza Strip to be "flattened completely, just like Auschwitz today," and for its Palestinian residents to be forcefully transferred to refugee camps in Lebanon in an interview with Israel's Radio 103FM.
In the interview, David Azoulay, the head of the local council of Metula, near the border with Lebanon, said that while he is "not a far-right person," in the wake of October 7, Gazans should be told to "go to the beaches," where Israeli ships will "load them up – the civilians... the terrorists they have there – and place them on Lebanon's shores where there are enough refugee camps."
Asked what should be done with the Gaza Strip should his plan with regard to its residents be enacted, Azoulay explained that it should be "left empty, just like Auschwitz. A museum. So the whole world will learn what the State of Israel can do."
The Strip, he said, should then be turned into a huge buffer zone, "from the sea to the border fence, completely empty, so that everyone remembers what was once there."
"Flatten everything, just like Auschwitz is today," he reiterated.
When questioned about why the Lebanese authorities, particularly the militant group Hezbollah which Israel is currently fighting, would allow Israeli navy ships to offload millions of Palestinians on its shores, Azoulay argued that "Hezbollah sees what's happening in the south [in Gaza], and as long as we don't finish the job there – meaning to flatten everything – Hezbollah will say, 'the Israelis are stupid and [can be] restrained.'"
"I can't understand how Israel can't deal with a terror organization, strong as it may be. The state is afraid, uprooting people from their homes," he added.
Azoulay is the latest Israeli official to make highly controversial remarks about Israel's plans for a post-war Gaza.
In a Jerusalem Post op-ed last month, Israel's intelligence minister, Gila Gamliel, called on Western countries to "take in" residents of the Gaza Strip, "for humanitarian reasons."
Also last month, Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter of Netanyahu's Likud party said in an interview that Israel is "rolling out the Gaza Nakba" when shown images of residents of northern Gaza evacuating south on the IDF's orders.
Dichter's comments came a few days after another government lawmaker, Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, suggested in a radio interview that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip is "an option," since "there are no non-combatants in Gaza."
