Israeli Official Suggests Gaza Be ‘Flattened Completely, Just Like Auschwitz Today’

LOADING ERROR LOADING A local Israeli council head suggested in a radio interview that Gaza should be “flattened completely, just like Auschwitz today,” the latest Israeli official to publicly call for the annihilation of the besieged Palestinian enclave. The politician said that while he is “not a far-right person,” he believes Palestinians in Gaza should be ordered 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.” On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched a deadly assault on Israel that killed approximately 1,200 people. A museum, so the whole world will learn what the state of Israel can do.” Israel, Azoulai continued, should then turn Gaza into a buffer zone “from the sea to the border fence, completely empty, so that everyone remembers what was once there.” The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum was officially established in 1947, in large part thanks to efforts by the camp’s former prisoners. “It is a place of our collective memory of this dark chapter in the history of humanity, of transmission to younger generations and a sign of warning of the many threats and tragic consequences of extreme ideologies and denial of human dignity.” The museum released a statement with strong words for Azoulai, saying Israeli authorities should react to his “shameful abuse, as terrorism as can never be a response to terrorism.” Memory of victims of Auschwitz has, at times, been violated and instrumentalized in various extreme statements.