Two days ago, after four boys were killed by the Israeli military on a Gaza beach in front of the world’s media, Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett went on CNN to blame Hamas for their deaths. About 30 second into his interview with Wolf Blitzer above he says that Hamas is “conducting massive self-genocide.”
Here’s the transcript (emphasis added):
BLITZER: As we speak, we’re just getting these reports, awful reports, four Palestinian kids, playing on a beach, all of a sudden killed. An Israeli gun boat shell landed there. You’ve heard of these reports, right? Do you — do you —
BENNETT: I just heard about it this moment. I think it’s terrible that Hamas is butchering its own children. I would never take my children and place them next to missile launchers. Here’s what they’re doing. Hamas is conducting massive self-genocide. They’re taking women and children, placing them next to missile launchers, and shooting the missiles at Israel.
BLITZER: But these kids apparently were playing on a beach.
BENNETT: I’m telling you — I’ll tell you where we find the missile launchers. We find them in hospitals, in schools, in homes. I myself am a former commando fighter. I saw it in Lebanon. You have a kitchen. You have a living room. And then you have the missile launcher room. What they’re deliberately doing is seeking to kill as many Palestinians as possible in order to yell to the world, help us. And this is cynical and cowardly. You know, if you want to conduct terror against Israelis, which is unacceptable, send fighters to do it. Don’t send your women and children.
BLITZER: But they are not sending them. These are little children. They were just playing on the beach. And, clearly, you were — you were — the Israeli military was aiming for some sort of target that, in the process, there was what they used to call the Pentagon collateral damage. These are human beings, though.
BENNETT: Israel never targets civilians deliberately, period.
So it seems Bennett acknowledges genocide is happening. Now it just becomes a question of who is carrying it out.
