Several people at a pro-Israel protest in New York City called for the Gaza Strip to be “flattened” and for genocide against Palestinians, according to a viral video.
“At a Pro-Israel protest in New York City, Zionist activists spoke with me and explicitly called for Arab/ Palestinian genocide,” reporter Jeremy Loffredo wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, alongside the video on Tuesday. It has since amassed more than 8 million views on the platform.
Israel has been conducting airstrikes on the sealed-off and densely populated Gaza Strip, after Hamas gunmen attacked towns, killing people and taking dozens of Israelis and some foreigners hostage in the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israel’s history. Hamas, which is funded and armed by Iran, is sworn to Israel’s destruction and its replacement with an Islamic state. It has said the attack was retribution for worsening conditions for Palestinians under Israeli occupation.
Israel’s embassy in Washington said the death toll from the weekend Hamas attacks had surpassed 1,000, Reuters reported. The outlet reported that Gaza’s health ministry said Israel’s airstrikes had killed at least 830. Israel has also stopped the entry of food, fuel and medicine into Gaza, a tiny territory of 2.3 million people—half of them children. Over half the population lives below the poverty line, according to the IMF.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said what Israel “will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
Pro-Palestine and pro-Israel rallies clashed in New York and in other cities that day.
According to Loffredo’s video, a number of Israel supporters who gathered in Midtown Manhattan expressed support for the killing of Palestinians and destruction of Gaza.
“F*** Palestine! Palestine to my d**k!” one man tells Loffredo in the video.
Asked what the man thinks the response should be from Netanyahu and the Israeli military, the man says: “Kill all Palestinians, all of them! Not one left. From the river to the sea Palestine will be deceased!”
Later in the clip, the same man says: “I’m not stopping. Until all Arabs are wiped out.”
A second man at the protest is seen holding up a phone with photos showing what Gaza looks like today and another portraying the area flattened.
“Now Gaza like this… Gaza need to do like this,” he said, pointing at the images.
Asked what Israel’s response should be to Gaza, a third man in the video says: “We gotta wipe them off the f***ing map. I’m talking about blowing every f***ing… flatten them like a parking lot. Flatten them out once and for all and get rid of them.”
A fourth man agrees, saying there “nothing else you can do.”
“They have proved to us there’s nothing else you can do. We tried,” he says. “That will be the last war in Gaza,” he says later in the clip.
Another man tells Loffredo that he believes that “now is the time that we need to erase Gaza.”
Noting that Hamas has taken Israelis hostages, he adds: “There is people inside… our people inside that are kidnapped. And now we need to kill all of them and free Israel. All of the Arab beliefs is killing Jewish and killing and murdering our people.”
A woman in the video also tells Loffredo: “Flatten it. Flatten Gaza.”
At the demonstration on Sunday, pro-Palestinian protesters also faced off against pro-Israel protesters. The pro-Palestinian protesters held banners including “Israel go to hell!” and “NYC stands with Gaza.”
The pro-Palestinian rally dwarfed the pro-Israel side in terms of numbers, Politico reported. The demonstration in support of Palestinians was condemned by Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who described it as “abhorrent and morally repugnant.”
Update 10/11/23, 9:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.