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In Their Own Words
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In Their Own Words
A vetted ledger of what Israeli officials said about Gaza after October 2023, each quote pulled to a primary source and graded.
These are the verbatim words of Israeli officials on Gaza, each graded to a primary source.
We correct the viral graphic's paraphrase and fabrication, and we do not supply the genocide verdict ourselves.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a complete siege of Gaza, no electricity, food, water, or fuel, and said Israel was fighting 'human animals.'
Documented across mainstream outlets on October 9, 2023, and cited in South Africa's ICJ application. Human Rights Watch concluded in December 2023 that the siege used starvation as a weapon of war.
Said in public, on camera, in the Knesset.
- Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in Paris in March 2023, before the war: 'There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.' The peoplehood-denial baseline. [FACT]
- Likud's Nissim Vaturi, Deputy Knesset Speaker, October 2023: 'Erase Gaza. Nothing else will satisfy us.' [FACT]
- Retired Major-General Giora Eiland, in a November 2023 op-ed: 'severe epidemics in the south of Gaza will bring victory closer.' A commentator and former official, not a serving minister. [FACT]
“I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza, and that every baby, even 80 years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did.”
Graded FACT on the page: captured on video, quoted in full because the full sentence is the point.
Agriculture Minister and former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter described the mass displacement of northern Gaza as 'Gaza Nakba 2023.' The graphic's 'no living Palestinian' caption is a fabrication we do not use.
His 'Nakba 2023' wording is documented in November 2023 reporting. The 'no living Palestinian' line has no primary source, so we replace it with what he actually said.
On the Amalek theme we use only on-record material: Netanyahu's own invocation of the biblical Amalek, and a soldier video the IDF itself confirmed and condemned, not the anonymous single-soldier screenshot.
Netanyahu's October 28, 2023 remark was cited by South Africa at the ICJ. The 'seed of Amalek' soldier video was authenticated after the IDF acknowledged it. Anonymous social-media screenshots are excluded as an unverifiable fabrication vector.
Settler-movement leader Daniella Weiss said Arabs would not remain in Gaza and that the world would absorb them. She holds no government office; her weight is as the organized resettlement movement's public face.
Said on camera in an April 2024 BBC interview. Graded one notch below FACT: it is her stated position, not a government order.
The discipline is the point.
- The verbatim quotes, each graded to a primary source.
- The ICJ found the genocide claim 'plausible' on 26 Jan 2024 and ordered provisional measures, a preliminary ruling we attribute to the Court.
- HRW found the siege used starvation as a weapon of war.
- Herzog was not captioned right: he said 'it's an entire nation ... that is responsible,' not 'no innocent civilians,' and he disputes the framing.
- Dichter's 'no living Palestinian' caption is a fabrication; anonymous soldier screenshots are excluded.
- Whether these officials speak for ordinary Israelis, and any genocide verdict in our own voice.
The vetted, primary-sourced record of official statements on the West Bank and Lebanon is still unwritten.
The primary-sourced statements, for example Smotrich's call to 'wipe out' the West Bank town of Huwara, that should be added to this ledger.
Help us fill it →Whether these statements reflect broader Israeli opinion, rather than the views of the officials quoted, is unestablished.
Reputable opinion-polling evidence on Israeli public attitudes during the war.
Help us fill it →Why it matters now.
In the law of genocide the hardest thing to prove is intent, and here officials stated it in public, on camera, and in the Knesset. That is why South Africa built much of its ICJ application around these very quotes.
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenThe vetted, primary-sourced record of West Bank and Lebanon statements, for example Smotrich's call to 'wipe out' Huwara, to add to this ledger.
- OpenReputable opinion-polling evidence on how far these statements reflect broader Israeli attitudes during the war.