National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir triggered fresh international anger after posting a call for revenge on Wednesday morning, following an IDF announcement that four soldiers had been killed in a tank disaster in southern Lebanon. Among the dead was Lt. Col. Dor Ben Shimon, commander of the IDF’s 52nd Armored Battalion. The circumstances of the incident are still under investigation.
In a Hebrew post on X, Ben Gvir wrote: “For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers should cry. Lebanon as a whole should burn. With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make clear to the whole world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not free for the taking. Lebanon as a whole should burn. Our supreme duty is to protect Israel’s civilians and IDF soldiers, and that obligation comes before any other consideration.”
He added that he had told the prime minister the same thing in meetings, saying, “Enough with the ping-pong. In the Middle East, you do not win with measured responses and restraint, you have to go wild. Erase. Defeat terrorism.” The post has been viewed by more than 17 million users and was widely reported abroad.
X flagged the post as violating its rules, but kept it accessible behind a warning, saying it might still be in the public interest. The platform, owned by Elon Musk, displayed a notice above the post. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later used a screenshot of Ben Gvir’s post to attack Israel, claiming it showed that “the death cult based in Tel Aviv” was a threat to all humanity and interested only in permanent war.
