Statement on Genocidal Incitement by Israel’s Minister of National Security

The Lemkin Institute strongly condemns the recent inhumane statements of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, in which he called for the deliberate killing of “30 to 40” Palestinians every night in Gaza, even if they pose no immediate danger, because, according to him, “[t]here are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.” We will be very clear: This statement, which has garnered some outrage in Europe, is an unambiguous declaration of genocidal intent and incitement to genocide. Minister Ben Gvir’s statements, made on a podcast, demonstrate the consequences Israel’s ongoing global impunity: Israeli leaders now feel such unaccountability that they can clearly invoke language closely associated with Nazism – under which the term “Lebensunwertes Leben” (“life unworthy of life”) was used to justify the killing of millions of people – without fear of consequences.

Minister Ben-Gvir’s remarks, rather than being the words of an extremist within a more moderate government, simply translate Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign into the implicit justification provided by the anti-Palestinian ideology driving the destruction: that Palestinians are not human and their lives therefore have no value. Although Ben-Gvir’s provocative language ruffles some feathers in Israel, largely because he so plainly and crudely states to the world what is driving that nation in its war against the Palestinian people, he is nothing but the ugly, self-congratulatory face of a genocidal state and society.

The recent statements come during a period that is officially presented as a “ceasefire.” They demonstrate the inherently genocidal stance of the Israeli leadership towards the Palestinian people, whether the state is actively bombing civilians or not. Genocide is a crime that involves the undermining of the life prospects of a group, a process that is ongoing across Palestine, regardless of any claim of a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel is encroaching on more and more of Gaza’s territory. By June 2026, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) controlled an estimated 70 percent of the territory. Palestinian lives in Gaza are still under attack every day without fail. Its medical facilities, schools, and sanitation infrastructure have been completely destroyed. In fact, Nickolay Mladenov, Gaza’s High Representative on the Board of Peace, recently confirmed that there was “no tangible recovery in sight” for Palestinians because of the way in which the destruction has continued over the nine months following the U.S.’ brokering of this alleged “ceasefire.”

Meanwhile, as we warned in April 2024, IDF-supported settler violence in the West Bank is seeking to realize a Judea and Samaria, a Palestine, free of Palestinians.

Minister Ben-Gvir’s public call for daily executions of an entire population must be identified as a direct incitement to commit genocide under Article III(c) of the 1948 Genocide Convention, to which Israel is a state party. As such, Israel and its ministers are bound by the Convention’s prohibition of “direct and public incitement to commit genocide.”

In 2003, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) indicted individual Rwandan’s for incitement to commit genocide. In one of these cases, Hassan Ngeze was found guilty of the crime for editing and publishing a tabloid that systemically dehumanized the Tutsi people as “cockroaches.” He did not go as far as to call for their murder. Another defendant, Ferdinand Nahimana, co-founder of a radio station that called for the murder of Tutsis, was also found guilty of the same crime. In the verdict, the chamber remarked: “[t]he power of the media to create and destroy fundamental human values comes with great responsibility. Those who control such media are accountable for its consequences.”

Against this backdrop, Minister Ben-Gvir’s direct and public call on a podcast to willfully kill dozens of Palestinians every day, regardless of their status as civilian or soldier, must be understood as a call to commit mass murder of a protected group. This is especially true given that Ben-Gvir is not a member of the media but rather a member of the Israeli cabinet appearing in a public forum. His listeners, who will most certainly include IDF officers and soldiers,

The Lemkin Institute believes that the Minister must be held legally responsible for his violations of the Genocide Convention. Furthermore, since the Minister’s words are a direct violation of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, specifically their principles of proportionality, necessity, and humanity, he should be brought to justice for these atrocity crimes as well.

If the world powers do not act on Ben-Gvir’s statements, they will hand humanity over to the abject evil of every genocidal powerholder and aspirant across the globe for the foreseeable future.

Of course, Minister Ben-Gvir’s recent genocidal statements are not the first he has made. He can always be counted on to rip off the mask of the respectability of anti-Palestinian racism in Israel. His words about the nonpersonhood of Palestinians are part of a lengthy list of genocidal speech acts that he uses as a recurring propaganda strategy. They are also part of an even more lengthy list of monstrous statements made by other genocidaires. In 1920, German eugenicists Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding published a book that argued for the “destruction of life unworthy of life.” They considered this to apply to mentally or physically disabled people. Following the National Socialists’ rise to power, this justification became a powerful ideological tool that was applied to all people deemed to be “racially impure” or “racially inferior.”

Minister Ben-Gvir’s statements are illustrative of a state policy that does not view lethal violence as an exception, but as a routine procedure, and more so as a primary objective in and of itself. Mass killing is not a side effect of Israeli politics. It is ultimately a necessity for any settler-colonial project aiming to create a “Greater Israel” that extends well beyond the country’s 1948 and 1967 borders and that is widely believed to be ordained by God. Mass killing in Gaza is an inherent part of a demographic and territorial agenda that sees “all of Gaza” as belonging to Israel.

We must dig our fingers deep into the open wounds of a global society that has allowed such genocidal rhetoric to fester and to become the very public objective of state policies. The fact that these words can be publicly pronounced by a current state minister is evidence of the grotesque failure of humanity, especially of Western powers and those in a position to exert pressure on Israel and to uphold any of the principles of the Genocide and Geneva Conventions.

Shortly after the National Security Minister’s statement surfaced, some states, including France and Germany, condemned his “inhumane appeals” and called for sanctions at the European level. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres denounced Minister Ben-Gvir’s remarks, calling them “outrageous,” “dehumanizing,” and “dangerous.” We, as an international community, must call these statements what they are: genocidal.

As humanity has been saying for years now, mere condemnations of Israel and its leaders are not enough. Symbolic sanctions are not enough. Denouncing the inhumane is not enough when one has allowed the inhumane to become the reality for an entire group of people.

The international community has failed miserably to prevent this genocide or even stem its determined advance. But we can still stop the killing and mitigate the horrors. We can still save mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, brothers and sisters. As Dag Hammarskjöld, second Secretary-General of the United Nations reminded us: “The United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” This hell needs to come to an end.