Israeli council leader says Gaza 'should be turned into Auschwitz'

The head of a local council in Israel suggested on Sunday that Gaza should eventually "resemble the Auschwitz concentration camp" in the latest genocidal comment by an Israeli official.

Speaking to Israel’s 103FM radio, David Azoulay, the head of the local council of the town of Metula, close to the border with Lebanon, said the people of Gaza should be ordered to "go to the beaches" where the Israeli army would "load them up" on ships and "place them on Lebanon’s shores where there are enough refugee camps".

His remarks were condemned by the Auschwitz Museum in Poland.

An estimated 960,000 Jewish detainees were murdered by Nazi guards at the infamous Auschwitz camp in Poland during the Holocaust, along with an additional 140,000 Romani, Polish, and Soviet prisoners.

"The entire Gaza Strip should be emptied and levelled 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," Azoulay said.

"We should leave Gaza desolate and destroyed to serve as a museum, demonstrating the madness of the people who lived there," the council leader added, while also claimed he was "not a far-right person".

Other Israeli politicians have also made genocidal remarks regarding the Gaza Strip, although Azoulay may have been the first to mention Auschwitz.

Former Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked said last month that the city of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip should be turned into a "soccer field" and the territory’s two million inhabitants should be expelled.

Israel's Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu previously suggested a nuclear bomb could be dropped on Gaza.

Memory of victims of Auschwitz has, at times, been violated and instrumentalized in various extreme statements.

David Azoulai appears to wish to use the symbol of the largest cemetery in the world as some sort of a sick, hateful, pseudo-artistic, symbolic expression.

Calling… https://t.co/ELvU1aOacs

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 18, 2023

Reacting to Azoulay’s comments, the Auschwitz Museum said on X, formerly Twitter, that Azoulay "appears to wish to use the symbol of the largest cemetery in the world as some sort of a sick, hateful, pseudo-artistic, symbolic expression".

"We do hope that Israeli authorities will react to such shameful abuse, as terrorism can never be a response to terrorism," it added.

Israel's indiscriminate war on the Gaza Strip has targeted and destroyed hospitals, schools, and residential areas and killed 19,453 people, most of them women and children. Over 80 percent of the population has been forced to flee their homes.