If the international community had an effective justice system, Katz would have been put on a global most-wanted list
by Gideon Levy 29 July 2026 Haaretz Opinion
Defense Minister Israel Katz at a conference in Jerusalem in June. Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
Defense Minister Israel Katz loves to brag about his war crimes. There are practically none that he does not take pride in, hardly any crimes against humanity that he has not threatened to commit. Like a small-time hood, Katz boasts in equal measure about the crimes he is responsible for and even more those he had nothing to do with. A dwarfish wheeler-dealer pretending to be defense minister, with no real influence, Katz babbles endlessly about his crimes.
Thus, Katz announces with great fanfare every time he orders the army to occupy and level another West Bank refugee camp, "Look at the seeds of destruction that I have planted."
The timing is transparent, of course: It is the Likud primaries. But the fact that war crimes are the ticket to popularity for his base shows us how low public discourse has descended in moral terms.
There have been bigger war criminals in the State of Israel than Katz, but there has never been anyone who took such pride in his crimes. Indeed, Katz has started a new trend: Hey, look at me, a war criminal, he boasts. Vote for the perpetrators of transfer and genocide. Don't be ashamed.
This week, Katz again issued a statement trumpeting his directive to occupy another West Bank refugee camp and expel its residents. That is how it is when crimes have been normalized and legitimized. Almost no one was held accountable here when Israel expelled some 20,000 residents of the Jenin camp and destroyed it in January 2025 and shortly afterwards, two refugee camps in Tulkarm. The lives of tens of thousands of people, the vast majority of them poor, destitute and innocent, were destroyed.
Israeli forces demolish Palestinian homes in the West Bank, on Monday.
Do we need to be reminded that they are third- and fourth-generation refugees, whom Israel expelled from their villages in 1948 without ever letting them return? Do we need to explain that Israel is to blame for their fate? And now, they are not being permitted to return to their homes in the camps, some of which have been razed. Vibrant, densely populated communities have become ghost towns.
I knew the Jenin camp well. There was none other like it in the West Bank with its blend of determination, courage and pride, along with warmth and generosity. Yes, the Jenin camp, which has been called "a hornet's nest." Yes, there were more gunmen there than in other camps, as well as bomb-making labs. I saw them. But the camp did not surrender in its fight for freedom. Israel's solution was to destroy it.
It was the same in Nur al-Shams and Tulkarm – they are no longer there, their residents scattered across the West Bank, huddled in the homes of relatives for almost two years.
Katz wants to continue with this pilot program. Balata and the old and new Askar camps are in his crosshairs. From there, he will move on to the camps in the center and south of the West Bank, until not a camp is left standing from Dheisheh to Al-Fawar. And why just camps? Next it will be villages and cities, which are also home to resistance to the occupation. Nakba 2.0 performed to the applause of Likud primary voters.
Israeli soldiers during an Israeli military operation in Jenin camp, West Bank, last July.Credit: Raneen Sawafta/Reuters
A few months ago, Katz was invited to the Channel 14 conference, where he proclaimed that in "24 Lebanese villages numbering hundreds of residents, we have destroyed every structure, not house by house, but entire villages." And there was more in Gaza: "Places you remember, like Shujaiyeh and Jabalya, no longer exist today. They have been destroyed. I see no houses, only the beach." The poetics of a minister of eradication.
If the State of Israel had a real system of justice, Katz would have been arrested when he left the auditorium. If the international community had an effective justice system, he would have been put on a global most wanted list.
Katz is there to laugh at the ridiculous Israeli propaganda, which tells the world that Israel abides by international law and does not intentionally harm those non-combatants. He provides the most incriminating evidence of all – there is no need for human rights organizations or a court to investigate. Israel is destroying entire regions, destruction for its own sake, to satisfy the lust for revenge and blood of the Likud primary voters.
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