Ben Gvir calls to assassinate PA officials, arrest Abbas ahead of UN vote on foreign force for Gaza

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir says that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas should be placed in solitary confinement and senior PA officials should be targeted for assassination if the UN advances recognition of a Palestinian state, hours before a scheduled UN Security Council vote on a resolution endorsing US President Donald Trump’s comprehensive Gaza ceasefire plan is set to take place.

The proposal lays out a multi-stage process that would hand Gaza over to an International Stabilization Force (ISF) and an apolitical Palestinian administration overseen by a Trump-chaired “Board of Peace,” adding that, if Gaza is demilitarized and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority “faithfully” reforms itself, a path to Palestinian statehood may be possible, which Ben Gvir and his far-right party firmly oppose.

Speaking at the opening of his Otzma Yehudit faction meeting, Ben Gvir says “a ‘Palestinian’ state of the ‘invented people’ who call themselves ‘Palestinian’ must never be established, because the aspiration of those seeking to establish such a state is to build it on the ruins of the State of Israel.”

“If they accelerate recognition of a Palestinian terror state… orders must be given for targeted killings of senior Palestinian Authority officials—who are terrorists in every respect—as well as an order for the arrest of Abu Mazen,” he says, referring to Abbas. “There is a solitary confinement cell ready for him in Ketziot Prison.”

The US led the publication of a statement issued together with Arab and Muslim states on Friday saying that Trump’s Gaza plan offers a pathway to Palestinian statehood.

Netanyahu himself welcomed the plan when it was unveiled at the White House in September, but its actual text is less clear regarding prospects for Palestinian statehood.

Ben Gvir appears to be intensifying his anti-Palestinian rhetoric as Israel enters an election year.