CAIR seeks US action after Israeli minister’s call to kill Gazans nightly
Itamar Ben Gvir said Israel should "take down 30 to 40 every night," remarks Muslim group says warrant urgent review of US military aid
WASHINGTON (MNTV) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest U.S. Muslim civil rights group, has condemned remarks by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir advocating mass killings in Gaza, and called on Washington to reconsider military support for Israel.
Speaking on a podcast hosted by former hostage Rom Braslavski, Ben Gvir criticized a recent reduction in Israeli strikes and said he disagreed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I think targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night,” he said, adding: “there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”
In the same appearance, he advocated mass emigration of Palestinians and Israeli resettlement of Gaza — a proposal international lawyers say could amount to ethnic cleansing.
Ben Gvir, a far-right member of Netanyahu’s coalition, has made similar statements before; some by Israeli officials have been submitted to the International Court of Justice as evidence of alleged genocidal intent, which Israel denies.
CAIR said rhetoric portraying Palestinians as less than human helps create conditions in which civilian life is treated as expendable, and urged Congress to investigate and to condition or suspend military aid.
The remarks come against a documented civilian toll. Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,250 people in Gaza since an October truce took effect, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, part of a genocide that has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
CAIR has separately urged aid suspension over an image it said showed elderly Palestinian men used as human shields and then killed.
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