UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday slammed remarks by Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir that Israel should kill “30 or 40” people every night in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
“These remarks are appalling. They’re outrageous. They’re dehumanising, and they’re dangerous. And we condemn them unequivocally,” said UN Chief Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Ben-Gvir, who is already facing calls from several European countries for bloc-wide sanctions, made the call for mass killings during a podcast with a former Gaza hostage who had been held by Hamas.
“I think targeted eliminations should be carried out in Gaza every night. Take out 30 or 40,” he said. “Not only those who endanger you right now. These are people who shouldn’t be alive,” Ben-Gvir said. “I’m paying them a compliment by calling them humans.”
Meanwhile, Germany and France condemned remarks by the Israeli minister.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz “strongly condemns the inhumane appeals made by Minister [Itamar] Ben-Gvir, which violate international law,” German government spokesman Sebastian Hille said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot also slammed the remarks, calling them “intolerable and inhumane” in an interview with the La Montagne regional newspaper.
Lars Klingbeil, German vice chancellor and finance minister, said in a TV interview Tuesday that Ben-Gvir’s comments “must have consequences,” adding that sanctions were being discussed at the European level.
Several European countries have called for EU-wide sanctions against the far-right minister, but the proposal has failed to win the required unanimity.
Calls to blacklist Ben-Gvir grew after he published a video in May of himself mocking bound activists seized by Israeli soldiers on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
France, in response, banned Ben-Gvir from entering the country and called for the EU to impose bloc-wide sanctions, but EU sanctions have to be signed off by all 27 member states, and staunch supporters of Israel refused to go along with the push.
