In the raw aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Israel, one could argue that use of extreme and dehumanizing language by Israeli officials was, if not justified, at least predictable.
Trauma of that magnitude can go some way toward explaining what came next: then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s characterization of Gazans as “human animals,” or Knesset member Yitzhak Kroizer’s claim that no Palestinian in Gaza is innocent and that “the Gaza Strip should be flattened, and there should be one sentence for everyone there — death.”
