Israel: mayor calls for Gaza neighbourhoods to be ‘wiped out’

The mayor of the southern Israeli settlement of Sderot has called for Gaza Strip neighbourhoods to be “wiped out” if rockets are fired towards Israel, Anadolu has reported.

“If they launch rockets from a certain area, the entire neighbourhood must be wiped out,” Alon Davidi told Army Radio yesterday. “The entire area must be exterminated, and we must work systematically.”

On Monday, the Israeli authorities said that nine rockets had been fired from Gaza towards Sderot, noting that five of them had been intercepted, according to Israeli Channel 7. The Israel occupation forces said last week that since 7 October about 9,500 rockets, shells and attack drones have been launched into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

Soon after the Hamas cross-border incursion on 7 October, Israel evacuated 60 per cent of Sderot’s residents. However, Davidi called on the Israeli government to evacuate all of the residents due to the war, reported Hebrew-language media.

Sderot is built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Najd. The village was ethnically-cleansed of its Palestinian population on 13 May 1948 by Zionist terrorists, three days before the state of Israel declared its “independence”. More than 400 Palestinian farmers and their families were driven off their land and “relocated” as refugees in Gaza, which is less than a mile away at its closest point. During the 2014 Israeli military offensive against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, it was reported that Israelis gathered in Sderot to watch and cheer as the bombs fell in the enclave.

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