An Israeli minister boasted on Thursday that Benjamin Netanyahu's government is racing against time to wipe out the Gaza Strip and its Palestinian population, making it entirely"Jewish."

"The government is racing against time to destroy Gaza. We are destroying this evil. We are destroying its people," Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said.

"Gaza will become entirely Jewish," he told local radio station Kol Parma.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a genocidal war in Gaza, including killing, starvation, destruction, and forced displacement, ignoring all international calls and orders from the International Court of Justice to halt it.

The US-backed genocide left more than 202,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 9,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and a famine that claimed the lives of many.

Eliyahu, from the far-right Jewish Power party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, went on to say,"We don't need to deal with hunger in Gaza."

The government media office in Gaza warned last Sunday that the Strip was on the verge of "mass death," after more than 140 days of closed crossings.

Since March 2, Israel has avoided continuing to implement a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement with Hamas, and has closed Gaza's crossings to aid trucks stacked along the border.

Eliyahu addressed the criticism directed by the Israeli opposition at Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

"These sick people, like (leader of the opposition Democratic Party) Yair Golan and (former Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert, have lost their identity and their support for the people of Israel," he said.

** Stigma

Commenting on these statements, MK Gilad Kariv of the Democratic Party said,"Eliahu's continued tenure as minister is a disgrace to Israel and the entire Jewish people."

He added via the X platform: "He is a violent and extremist nationalist who promotes the commission of war crimes, and violates not only international law, but also the laws of Israel."

Kariv added,"Netanyahu's allowing his government ministers to express themselves in this way is further evidence of his loss of reason, political cowardice, and impotence."

He added,"Netanyahu and his extremist partners are putting Israel in danger."

Eliyahu has previously called for dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, and his Jewish Power party calls for reoccupying the territory, establishing settlements on its land, and displacing Palestinians from it.

For decades, Israel has occupied Palestine and territories in Syria and Lebanon, and refuses to withdraw from these territories and establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, along the pre-1967 borders.