A far-right member of Israel’s legislature has called for burning down the Gaza Strip and blocking humanitarian aid to the besieged area amid the occupying regime’s brutal onslaught on the coastal silver, which has so far claimed more than 12,000 Palestinian lives.
Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Knesset and a member of the legislature's foreign affairs and security committee, made the call on Friday and said Tel Aviv must hold off on providing Gaza with relief aid until the more than 200 Israelis captured by Palestinian resistance movement Hamas are released.
Vaturi claimed that the Israeli regime has been “too humane” after the extremist cabinet of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu — under the international community’s pressure — approved the entry of two trucks of fuel per day into Gaza.
The fuel delivery was ordered to prevent the collapse of the war-ravaged city’s sewage treatment system, which risked a mass outbreak of viral diseases, as the besieged area is already beset by power outages and telecommunication disruptions.
“All of this preoccupation with whether or not there is internet in Gaza shows that we have learned nothing. We are too humane. Burn Gaza now, nothing less!” Vaturi wrote in a post on his X social media account.
“Don’t allow fuel in, don’t allow water in until the hostages are returned back!” he adds.
The Egyptian Red Crescent said 15 tons of diesel entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Friday after the United Nations had warned of widespread starvation in the wake of intermittent shutdowns in internet and telephone services across the strip over the lack of fuel.
Gaza has faced dire shortages of food, medicine, fuel and other resources after Israel cut off electricity, blocked fuel deliveries and launched a large-scale aggression against the besieged area on October 7.
Earlier in the month, Israel’s so-called heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu said dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was “one of the possibilities” in the ongoing war on the coastal silver and allowing any humanitarian aid into Gaza was wrong.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for intensified Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
According to the Palestinian authorities, at least 12,000 Palestinians, including over 5,000 children, have been killed and over 29,200 others injured in the Israeli strikes.