Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reprimanded an ultranationalist junior minister who suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas militants, with the comments shining a rare spotlight on the Middle Eastern country’s opaque nuclear weapons program.
On Sunday, Netanyahu said Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, a member of Israel’s far-right Jewish Power party, has been suspended from Cabinet meetings "until further notice" after he responded in the affirmative when asked in an interview earlier in the day if he advocated dropping "some kind of atomic bomb" on Gaza "to kill everyone.”
"That is one way to go,” Eliyahu told radio station Kol Barama.
In a statement, Netanyahu’s office said the minister’s comments were “not based in reality.”
Israel and its military are “operating in accordance with the highest standards of international law to avoid harming innocents,” the statement said. “We will continue to do so until our victory.”
Militants from Hamas, which rules Gaza, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials. The attack — the worst in the country’s 75-year history — has been called “Israel’s 9/11.”
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, unleashing a massive bombing campaign on Gaza and launching a ground invasion of the territory. Gaza's health ministry says 9,770 people have been killed, also mostly civilians.
Israel has long had a policy of ambiguity as to whether it has nuclear weapons, though it is widely believed to possess a sizable arsenal.
Later Sunday, Eliyahu said in a post on the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, that his statement about a nuclear strike was "metaphorical" and that Israel was "committed to doing everything possible to return the hostages safe and sound."
But Eliyahu’s comments — as well as an unusual announcement by the U.S. military that a submarine potentially capable of carrying nuclear missiles had arrived in the region — amounted to a tacit acknowledgement of Israel’s status as a nuclear power.
