JERUSALEM 

An Israeli lawyer accused the Israeli judiciary of silence Thursday regarding incitement to violence by officials against Palestinians, including genocide in Gaza.

Lawyer and human rights activist Michael Sfard, on behalf of a group of lawyers and Israeli public figures, sent a letter to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara requesting that she take measures against public figures and officials, including lawmakers, who called for the annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing.

Sfard told Anadolu that he documented calls by officials to apply "annihilation, ethnic cleansing, execution to prisoners, throwing a nuclear bomb, inflicting a second Nakba, starving people in Gaza and using epidemics as a tool against the population in Gaza."

He cited a statement by Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, who told reporters that dropping a "nuclear bomb" on the Gaza Strip was "an option."

"All these calls for mass killing was the characteristic feature of the form of justice in the Middle Ages," said Sfard. "But in the modern age, it is incitement to commit serious crimes based on the local and international laws."

He noted a big portion of those who incite violence against Palestinians are not "marginal figures" but "well-known journalists, celebrities, senior military leaders, researchers and academics members of Knesset (parliament) and ministers."

"Yes, there is a group of elite people who call for killing or at least call for the expulsion," he said. "It is Israel's duty to fight and prevent the committing of war crimes or crimes against humanity," the Israeli lawyer noted.

"Despite all, no legal action was taken against any of them by the law enforcement regime over this topic," said Sfard.

He said the General Attorney could take action but she “doesn't care" and went on to accuse the office of a double standard as it acted previously in incitement cases against Arabs who were sued and arrested.

Israel launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 22,438 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,614 injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar