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51. In this regard, the Court has taken note of a number of statements made by senior Israeli
officials. It calls attention, in particular, to the following examples.
52. On 9 October 2023, Mr Yoav Gallant, Defence Minister of Israel, announced that he had
ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza City and that there would be “no electricity, no food, no fuel”
and that “everything [was] closed”. On the following day, Minister Gallant stated, speaking to Israeli
troops on the Gaza border:
“I have released all restraints . . . You saw what we are fighting against. We are
fighting human animals. This is the ISIS of Gaza. This is what we are fighting
against . . . Gaza won’t return to what it was before. There will be no Hamas. We will
eliminate everything. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week, it will take weeks or
even months, we will reach all places.”
On 12 October 2023, Mr Isaac Herzog, President of Israel, stated, referring to Gaza:
“We are working, operating militarily according to rules of international law.
Unequivocally. It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this
rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It is absolutely not true. They could
have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in
a coup d’état. But we are at war. We are at war. We are at war. We are defending our homes. We are protecting our homes. That’s the truth. And when a nation protects its
home, it fights. And we will fight until we’ll break their backbone.”
On 13 October 2023, Mr Israel Katz, then Minister of Energy and Infrastructure of Israel, stated on X
(formerly Twitter):
“We will fight the terrorist organization Hamas and destroy it. All the civilian
population in [G]aza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive
a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.”
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