Jewish rabbi encourages killing Gazans, even children

An Israeli rabbi urged the killing of women and children in the Gaza Strip and said he considered it a response to the teachings of halakha, or Jewish law.

It came from Eliyahu Mali in a video that was widely circulated Thursday on social media.

Mali heads the Shirat Moshe religious school in Jaffa in central Israel, where students serve in the army.

"In our mitzvah (holy) war, in our situation in Gaza, according to what the law says, 'Not every soul shall live,' and the logic of this is very clear: if you do not kill them, they will kill you," said Mali.

He claimed that those described as "vandals" in today's war are "the children of the previous war whom we kept alive, and in reality, it is the women who produce terrorists."

"This means that this rule (do not keep alive every soul) is very clear in its concept, either you or them," he said. "Whoever comes to kill you, kill him first."

"Whoever comes to kill you with this concept does not only include the young man aged 16, 18, 20, or 30 who is now pointing a weapon at you, but also the future generation (the children of Gaza), and those who produce the future generation (women of Gaza), because there is really no difference," he said.

The leader of the opposition Labor Party, Merav Michaeli, condemned the rabbi's comments.

"Using halakha does not give any rabbi permission to present Judaism or Israel as bloodthirsty and vengeful," Michaeli wrote Friday on X.

"This statement directly affects the security of the state of Israel, and like other statements distorted in the name of halakha, our enemy will use it in fighting on the international stage," she said.

"I demand the army and the Ministry of Defense to stop cooperating with the religious school (Shirat Moshe in Jaffa) until the rabbi is dismissed. The Israeli army must not allow such dangerous moral corruption within its ranks."

The Israeli Defamation League wrote on X: "We strongly condemn the words of Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, the head of Shirat Moshe religious school in Jaffa, who calls for killing all inhabitants of Gaza, including women and children."

It added: "The indiscriminate call to harm the innocent is a serious ethical injustice, which damages the actions of the army in Gaza during the war and distorts the image of the State of Israel in the world."

More than 30,800 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 73,000 injured in Israel's ongoing offensive in Gaza amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Palestinian groups estimate that thousands of Palestinians have been detained by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the seaside enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.