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An ever-growing database of quotes from Israeli leaders and public figures

86 Israeli Collective Punishment Quotes

  1. These [men rounded up en masse in Gaza] are not innocent citizens, these are not uninvolved, for me these are not human beings at all... These are barbaric terrorists whose place is in hell and you have to make sure that they are eliminated one by one!

  2. 7 Boom!

  3. I received great news. Three sons, two grandchildren of Ismail Haniya were eliminated in an airstrike, those you can hear above. Ismail, Eid Mubarak. You're next.

  4. There are no civilians in this war.

  5. [Is there any number of civilian deaths of Palestinians that would stop you carrying on with military action?] ... We can not stop. We will not stop.

  6. UNRWA is Hamas.

  7. Today's terrorists are the children of previous wars, whom we let live. And in reality, it is the women who create the terrorists.

  8. Today it was proven that the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza is not only madness while our abductees are being held in the Strip under substandard conditions, but also endangers the IDF soldiers. This is another clear reason why we must stop transferring this aid, which is in fact aid to harm the IDF soldiers and oxygen to Hamas.

  9. To those saying the price [of an offensive in Rafah] is too high, I say this very clearly: Hamas has a choice — they can surrender, release the hostages, and the citizens of Gaza will be able to celebrate the holy holiday of Ramadan.

  10. In Gaza, everyone is involved. Everyone voted Hamas. Anyone over the age of four is a Hamas supporter.

  11. 'Voluntary' is at times a state you impose until they give their consent.

  12. We need to inform the US that we are stopping aid to Gaza.

  13. Any civilian now, including bodies, who is not returned right now: we erase Gaza, and let the whole world boycott us.

  14. It is better to burn down buildings rather than have soldiers harmed. There are no innocents there ... One hundred thousand remain [in the north of Gaza]. I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them.

  15. We'd like to see, and we've talked about this in government meetings, by the way. There aren't any countries that want to take them [Gazans], even if we pay a lot of money. We should encourage voluntary migration, and we should compel them until they say they want it. The war does that.

  16. The price they must pay for what they've done to us should not be limited to merely punishing, the killing of insurgents. We are not talking about a conflict imposed on us, that's illogical. We refer to them as 'spaces,' while they call them 'land,' from which the word 'human' is derived. In the Middle East, it means that a human without land is worth nothing and has no right to exist. Therefore, the price they must pay for it to impact future generations is that we must take their land. First, we must take the land, after we have taken their land, we'll think about what we'll do next. The second thing we need to push for, despite all voices and opinions, is new migration and helping them find a new life. Gaza is certainly now destroyed and not suitable for human habitation. And I expect the Western world, as they did by welcoming a million Syrian refugees, to open their doors and welcome the people of Gaza.

  17. At least the northern Strip we must first of all conquer, annex, raze all the buildings and build neighborhoods.

  18. The entire Gaza Strip should be emptied and leveled flat, just like in Auschwitz. Let it become a museum, showcasing the capabilities of the State of Israel and dissuading anyone from living in the Gaza Strip. This is what must be done to give them a visual representation.

  19. Bombard from the air without mercy!! Enough with having mercy on the cruel at such painful costs. Enough with having mercy on 'uninvolved' Gazans. There are no uninvolved. Every Gazan who remains in a place of combat is an assistant to a terrorist organization. Enough! Change tactics. Destroy every place where there are terrorists and terrorist assistants. From the air!! Do not risk soldiers' lives if it is possible to bombard from the air!

  20. There's no such thing as uninvolved (civilians) in Gaza.

  21. At this very moment, aid trucks continue to enter the Gaza Strip! enough! How long will we bow our heads and endure the shame? That's not how you defeat terrorism. stop everything immediately bring back a total blockade. Return instructions to open fire in the north of the Gaza Strip against all incoming Gazans.

  22. My instructions are clear: There are to be no expressions of joy. Expressions of joy are equivalent to backing terrorism; victory celebrations give backing to those human scum, for those Nazis.

  23. Who's left in Gaza? Are there citizens? There are only tunnels, Hamas, and accursed terrorists who murdered children and are holding children hostage. We have to crush Gaza, Gaza is Hamas.

  24. I said burn Gaza, why should we be ashamed? Are there civilians in Gaza? Suddenly they put fuel in the Gaza Strip, they murdered children, why should we put up with something like this? What's left in Gaza? Tunnels, Hamas, and the damned terrorists who hold children captive.

  25. Israel is not fighting a terrorist organization but against the State of Gaza.

  26. [t]o be clear, when we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed.

  27. One of the options is to drop an atomic bomb on Gaza. I pray & hope for their [hostages] return, but there is also a price in war.

  28. I don’t see a big difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The Arabs are the same Arabs.

  29. Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.

  30. Vengeance is a great value. There is vengeance over what they did to us ... This place will be a fallow land. They will not be able to live here”

  31. I am saying here to the citizens of Lebanon, I already see the citizens in Gaza walking with white flags along the coast [...] If Hezbollah makes mistakes of this kind, the ones who will pay the price are first of all the citizens of Lebanon. What we are doing in Gaza, we know how to do in Beirut.

  32. The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes ... We must talk about the day after. In my mind, we will hand over lots to all those who fought for Gaza over the years and to those evicted from Gush Katif” [a former Israeli settlement].

  33. This testimony, which joins a multitude of shocking testimonies and demonstrations of joy by children, youth, adults, and elders - women as well as men, has led me to the understanding that every inhabitant of the Strip who does not fight against ISIS Gaza, is a son of death. I am convinced that it will be possible to evacuate those few sane individuals from the territory of the Strip. Dear citizens of Israel, achieving world support for the elimination of Hamas is not considered an achievement and there is no logic in creating an equation that differentiates between uniformed individuals and the rest of the inhabitants there, except as mentioned for the exemption of those who go against that oppressive regime! Therefore, I am full of hope and anticipation that the decision-makers will clarify to the world about updating the war targets. The destruction of Gaza and all its inhabitants. They set the norms for both us and them, and we will act not to disappoint them and will operate, God willing, with strength, determination, and cool-headedness until a clear victory. I will pursue my enemies and overtake them, and I will not return until they are consumed. Together we will win!

  34. What does it mean to harm all the population? There are no innocents! That's exactly it. You're saying now 'population'! There is no population! There are two and a half million terrorist- therefore, warning before bombing is meaningless. Warning has to be for innocents only and since there's no innocent, so, there's no problem. When I said 'they are all terrorists [Interviewer: "What does it mean? Kill everybody?"] This is the perception, that there is something defined in times of war called 'The hour of grace.'

  35. 'May your village burn'!! Yes, yes, as far as I'm concerned, it's great morale to wish for Gaza to be erased and set on fire. I have said more than once that revenge is a value. They almost conquered the kibbutzim in the south, slaughtered, raped, beheaded, and gouged out eyes, nearly 1400 murdered in a single Sabbath. So let their village burn. And if 'La Familia' sings this, it's because they understand that the enemy only understands force! And more force.

  36. The Gaza siege plan: impose a total siege on the north of the Gaza Strip, dry up and suffocate the Hamas terrorists in the tunnels until they are forced to come out; create a new security strip 2 km deep into the territory of the Strip along our entire border, a permanent Strip... Imagine bulldozers simply levelling the area; Countries around the world can take in the refugees- only temporarily, of course- until Hamas surrenders and the war ends. Between 6 months and 5 years; In the south of the Gaza Strip … we allow (but do not give ourselves): water, food, medicine ... We aren't allowing any drop of fuel to enter the entire Strip. Without fuel there are no tunnels because there is no ventilation and no lighting... Any country in the world that expresses pain over the situation of the refugees in the south is invited to temporarily host refugees (Scotland, Egypt, Turkey, etc.).

  37. We will destroy Hamas without mercy - I want revenge. [...] The beach of Gaza will be the blood of terrorists and I am not ashamed to say that.

  38. I would like to say that we, in Israel, at least the population, are not interested in all this rational Palestinian talk. For us, there is one purpose: to destroy Gaza, to destroy this absolute evil. To destroy this. There is no chance that after the holocaust, Jewish people will live similar experiences as they [experienced] 80 years ago.

  39. There is one and only one solution, which is to completely destroy Gaza before invading it. And when I talk about destruction, I mean destruction like it was in Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon.

  40. There are no innocents in Gaza. There are no ordinary citizens in Gaza. Every adult was trained to kill. Every woman is a monster. Every boy aspires to be a martyr Every baby will grow up to be a terrorist. wipe out, kill, destroy, destroy.

  41. Every building that falls in Gaza is a building from which Hamas executes their terrorist activities.

  42. On the first night, we should have taken down 50,000 Gazans, as a blood revenge. Cabinet discussions later, humanitarian later, prisoners and missing persons later. The first check - blood revenge. This is what Ben Gurion knew.

  43. A leadership that has mercy on monsters who massacred us is not worthy of leadership. A ceasefire for several hours is surrender, it is weakness, humiliation. [...] Without crushing Hamas and razing Gaza, we will not have the right to exist.

  44. A complete siege on Gaza. No water, no electricity, no food. Like in Beirut 1982. Water for the south of the Gaza Strip - only in exchange for the return of the kidnapped children and women.

  45. The spirit of Oslo is still here. And if we don't get rid of it … we will lose again. With Nazis & their assistants, you don't talk. You eradicate evil from the world. Do you want your pop [in Gaza] to drink? Release the hostages.

  46. There cannot be any humanitarian aid in [Gaza] while there are hostages in the Gaza Strip who are not receiving any humanitarian aid and are not receiving any visits, not from the Red Cross, and no one has any idea what is happening to them.

  47. The children in Gaza- the children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves. We are a people who live in peace, a people who seek life.

  48. I strongly oppose the opening of the blockade and the introduction of goods into Gaza on humanitarian grounds. Our commitment is to the families of the murdered and the kidnapped hostages - not to the Hamas murderers and those who aided them.

  49. I don't care about Gaza. I literally don't care at all. They can go out and swim in the sea. I want to see dead bodies of terrorists around Gaza.

  50. Destroy a neighborhood in Gaza every day the abductees are in their hands. If we blink, we run out of global credit. Every day that the abductees are with them, a neighborhood must be destroyed on its inhabitants and I will be called cruel. It is a Middle Eastern language.

  51. There are no innocent civilians in Gaza.

  52. We are striking our enemies with unprecedented might. I emphasize that this is only the beginning.

  53. Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home.

  54. Are you seriously keep on asking me about Palestinian civilians? What's wrong with you? Have you not seen what happened? We're fighting Nazis!

  55. A fire storm should wash over Gaza.

  56. Five days have passed since Muslims carried out the largest massacre in history of Jews, on the land of Israel, since the establishment of the State of Israel. And still [N]etanyahu refuses to give the moral order to crush and erase the cities of terror from which the murderers of our brothers emerged. Shame!

  57. Hamas became ISIS and the citizens of Gaza are celebrating instead of being horrified. Human animals are dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, no electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you will get hell.

  58. Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.

  59. The unequivocal goal of the war we are in the midst of is [...] the complete dismantling of [military and] civilian capabilities.

  60. Every Jew knows the saying 'Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way [...] and that is what [H*] did and their judgement shall be to destroy them, full stop. I relate to them like Amalek.

  61. The goal that has been outlined in the IDF is that on the day after the war, every being left in Gaza will understand the price of starting a war with the State of Israel... Throughout the past 24 hours, we have been conducting aerial strikes- destructive aerial operations that include thousands of armaments. To put that in perspective, the pace of the strikes is five times that of the strikes on Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon War. I repeat, five times what it was against Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon War.

  62. I ordered to immediately cut off the water supply from Israel to Gaza. Electricity and fuel were cut off yesterday. What was will not be.

  63. Jericho [Nuclear] Missile! Jericho Missile! A strategic alert, before considering the introduction of forces. A doomsday weapon! This is my opinion. May God preserve all our strength.

  64. Erase Gaza. Nothing else will satisfy us. It is not acceptable that we have a terrorist authority next to Israel. Do not leave a child there to expel all the remaining ones at the end, so that they will not have a resurrection.

  65. We need to deal a blow that hasn’t been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza.

  66. Gaza is the city of evil [...] We will turn all the places where Hamas is organized and hiding into cities of ruins. I say to the residents of Gaza - get out of there now. We will act everywhere and with all our strength.

  67. Now we all have one common goal — erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth. Those who are unable will be replaced.

  68. All of Gaza’s infrastructures must be destroyed to its foundation and their electricity cut off immediately. The war is not against Hamas but against the state of Gaza.

  69. We will avenge with great force the black day they have inflicted upon the State of Israel and its citizens. As Biyalik said: revenge for the blood of a little child has yet been devised by Satan.

  70. A closed, burnt Huwara — that’s what I want to see ... That’s the only way to achieve deterrence. After a murder like yesterday’s, we need burning villages when the IDF doesn’t act.

  71. The Palestinian people has declared war on us, and we must respond with war. Not an operation, not a slow-moving one, not low-intensity, not controlled escalation, no destruction of terror infrastructure, no targeted killings. Enough with the oblique references. This is a war. Words have meanings. This is a war. It is not a war against terror, and not a war against extremists, and not even a war against the Palestinian Authority. These too are forms of avoiding reality. This is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people. Why? Ask them, they started.

  72. I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to define reality with the simple words that language puts at our disposal. Why do we have to make up a new name for the war every other week, just to avoid calling it by its name. What’s so horrifying about understanding that the entire Palestinian people is the enemy? Every war is between two peoples, and in every war the people who started the war, that whole people, is the enemy. A declaration of war is not a war crime. Responding with war certainly is not. Nor is the use of the word 'war', nor a clear definition who the enemy is. Au contraire: the morality of war (yes, there is such a thing) is founded on the assumption that there are wars in this world, and that war is not the normal state of things, and that in wars the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.

  73. The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty years.

  74. With an outbreak of hostilities, the IDF will need to act immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy's actions and the threat it poses. Such a response aims at inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and expensive reconstruction processes. The strike must be carried out as quickly as possible, and must prioritize damaging assets over seeking out each and every launcher.

  75. Punishment must be aimed at decision makers and the power elite. In Syria, punishment should clearly be aimed at the Syrian military, the Syrian regime, and the Syrian state structure. In Lebanon, attacks should both aim at Hizbollah’s military capabilities and should target economic interests and the centers of civilian power that support the organization. Moreover, the closer the relationship between Hizbollah and the Lebanese government, the more the elements of the Lebanese state infrastructure should be targeted. Such a response will create a lasting memory among Syrian and Lebanese decision makers, thereby increasing Israeli deterrence and reducing the likelihood of hostilities against Israel for a an extended period. At the same time, it will force Syria, Hizbollah, and Lebanon to commit to lengthy and resource-intensive reconstruction programs.

  76. This approach is applicable to the Gaza Strip as well. There, the IDF will be required to strike hard at Hamas and to refrain from the cat and mouse games of searching for Qassam rocket launchers. The IDF should not be expected to stop the rocket and missile fire against the Israeli home front through attacks on the launchers themselves, but by means of imposing a ceasefire on the enemy.

  77. The IDF should decide on a neighborhood in Gaza and level it.

  78. Something like a cage has to be built for them [Palestinians]. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another.

  79. What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place, and casualties. If we know the family, we must strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise, the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent.

  80. If we make sure that they will have many dead and that 400k refugees flee through the Rafah crossing, there will be no fear of mass slaughter among our soldiers [...] the IDF is acting now, which pushes the residents [...] into the cities. The immigration gates to Egypt and the sea should be opened. Allow people to go out and make it clear: whoever chooses to go out, has gone out.

  81. The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer.

  82. We should tell them: listen, until they're released, from our side, you will starve to death. This is completely legitimate.

  83. We'll Deprive Gaza of Water, and the Arabs Will Leave.

  84. Before we try to act naive, and talk about journalists who got hurt - no one's hurt for no reason. Anyone who's in a shooting zone is hit because he needs to get hit, because he's a target of IDF

  85. I want to move on to one point, speaking of Gaza, speaking of Lebanon, and other places we'll occupy in the future. Since we want to maintain equilibrium as a developed country, punishment as a strategy should be the main element. In punishment you have room to maneuver, you decide whether you slap them once or twice, in front or from behind, whether to strike property or leaders, but the main objective of units in the field is to kill the enemy. Before he makes contact, while he makes contact, and then when he retreats. That's the most important thing. Quantity is more important than quality. One mistake the [Israeli] Army makes is judging each case individually, whether the person deserves to die or not. Most of these people [Gazans, Palestinians, Lebanese, Arabs] were born to die, we just have to help them.

  86. By instilling proper expectations of the IDF response among the civilian population, Israel will be able to improve its readiness and the resilience of its citizens. Still, the IDF’s primary goal must nonetheless be to attain a ceasefire under conditions that will increase Israel's long term deterrence, prevent a war of attrition, and leave the enemy floundering in expensive, long term processes of reconstruction.

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