“Our Job Is to Flatten Gaza. No One Will Stop Us.” by Younis Tirawi and Sami Vanderlip

This is what the deputy commander of Israel’s 749 Combat Engineering Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Adi Bekore, posted on his personal Facebook account on October 9, 2023, just two days after the Hamas attacks of October 7. Numerous soldiers from the battalion he had command over liked the post. It is a quote from a biblical passage in which the biblical nation of Israel is commanded to attack the Amalekites, an ancient biblical nation that was a recurrent enemy of the Israelites. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also invoked this reference early in the war—a moment cited by South Africa in its case to the ICJ as a piece of genocidal rhetoric… Like much of the rhetoric coming from all organs of the Israeli military since its assault on Gaza started, these words served as a stark warning of what was to come. One year later, countless homes, schools, hospitals, and residential buildings have been bombed and destroyed.