Israeli minister Ben Gvir calls for 40 deaths a day in Gaza, questions their humanity

Ben Gvir proposes 40 daily 'targeted killings' in Gaza

How much violence can a sitting minister verbalise before the international community stops calling it extremism? Israel's National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, has given an answer: between 30 and 40 dead every night, chosen without any immediate threat being necessary.

In a podcast released on 16 August, picked up by DW and shared by Palestinian media, Ben Gvir defended what he called "targeted killings" against the population of Gaza. He did not limit himself to Hamas leaders: he widened the target to people who "do not deserve to live" and openly questioned their humanity. The remark has, inevitably, peine the question of the limits of the conflict and of who decides which lives matter.

Reactions range from normalisation to alarm. Some frame the statement as the usual rhetoric of the Israeli far right, with no immediate practical impact. Others point out that a minister with security responsibilities should, at the very least, weigh his words when civilian lives are at stake. The exchange also antiestéticatured child casualty figures that are hard to reconcile with one another: each side's propaganda handles its own numbers, and that says a great deal about how the media battle is being fought.

The curious thing is that Ben Gvir remains a minister. The irony is that a country whose existence is rooted in the memory of the Holocaust produces leaders so comfortable dehumanising another people. But that is another discussion, and today the focus is on what one of its security officials said.