“Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
This is what the deputy commander of Israel’s 749 Combat Engineering Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Adi Bekore, posted on his personal Facebook account on October 9, 2023, just two days after the Hamas attacks of October 7. Numerous soldiers from the battalion he had command over liked the post. It is a quote from a biblical passage in which the biblical nation of Israel is commanded to attack the Amalekites, an ancient biblical nation that was a recurrent enemy of the Israelites. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also invoked this reference early in the war—a moment cited by South Africa in its case to the ICJ as a piece of genocidal rhetoric:
Like much of the rhetoric coming from all organs of the Israeli military since its assault on Gaza started, these words served as a stark warning of what was to come. One year later, countless homes, schools, hospitals, and residential buildings have been bombed and destroyed. 42,718 people have been killed, according to the most recent Gaza Health Ministry figures. The actual figure is certain to be a lot higher: An estimated 10,000 people are buried in the rubble, and the official count doesn’t include those indirectly killed by Israel’s assault on Gaza.
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