Feiglin: All Palestinians must leave Gaza, including newborn babies

Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin said Gaza’s entire Palestinian population should leave the territory, including newborn babies, arguing that residents bear collective responsibility for the October 7 attack.

In a contentious interview with Dan Perry and Owen Alterman on i24NEWS Israel Out Loud, Feiglin rejected distinctions between Hamas and Gaza’s civilian population and said the territory should be returned to Jewish control.

“Hamas is Gaza, and Gaza is Hamas,” he said.

Asked whether his position meant everyone in Gaza should leave, “down to babies born prematurely,” Feiglin answered: “Yeah.”

He then invoked the Allied bombing of German cities during World War II and the American atomic bombings of Japan, saying Gazans “should thank me” for not proposing similar action.

Claims of collective responsibility

Feiglin described Gaza as an “Islamo-Nazi entity” that, he argued, had lost its right to remain in the territory following October 7. He blamed the Oslo peace process and Israel’s disengagement from Gaza for creating that entity.

The interviewers repeatedly challenged his argument, pointing out that Gaza’s entire population had not participated in the attack.

Feiglin nevertheless insisted that residents should bear responsibility for the actions of Hamas, drawing comparisons with Germans under the Nazi regime and wartime Japan.

He initially claimed that all Gazans had voted for Hamas, then changed that figure to “90-something percent” when challenged. After the interview, the hosts rejected both claims, saying Hamas won approximately 44% of the vote in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election.

Comments about newborns

When Perry challenged him that assigning responsibility for terrorist crimes to an entire population amounted to collective punishment and a war crime, Feiglin rejected the characterization.

“This is not war crime. This is called justice,” he said, describing his proposal as “the most moral thing that can be.”

He went on to claim that a baby born in Gaza would grow up to carry out another October 7 attack against a child born in Tel Aviv, presenting the removal of Gaza’s population as necessary to prevent future violence.

“There’s no other solution,” he said.

Asked where Gazans would go, Feiglin suggested Britain, Somaliland and Arab countries without outlining any agreed arrangements for receiving them.

“You just open the borders and let them go,” he said, adding that they would eventually find somewhere to settle.

Feiglin also disputed widely cited Palestinian population estimates, claiming fewer than 800,000 people remained in Gaza. The interviewers challenged that figure, saying most international organizations put the population at more than two million.

Following the interview, the hosts warned that the policies he advocated could expose Israel to serious international legal consequences.