A firestorm of controversy has erupted in Israeli and Middle Eastern political circles after far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich publicly alleged that a senior U.S. envoy made extraordinarily inflammatory remarks describing all two million residents of the Gaza Strip as “Nazis” during a closed-door meeting last year. The explosive claim was made by Smotrich during a public conference in Israel this Thursday, where he also repeated longstanding expansionist rhetoric that has drawn international condemnation for human rights violations.
According to Smotrich’s account, the conversation took place shortly after U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff completed a visit to Gaza last August, a period marked by intense Israeli military operations and mounting global alarm over humanitarian conditions in the enclave. Smotrich stated that he, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, and Witkoff reviewed a pre-prepared propaganda video during the closed meeting. After viewing the footage, Smotrich claims Witkoff turned to him and stated: “Bezalel, I will not let two million Nazis live next to your children on fences.”
The allegation is particularly striking given the public framing of Witkoff’s 2024 Gaza trip. A former real estate property lawyer with no prior professional experience in foreign policy or humanitarian work, Witkoff publicly positioned his visit as a mission to advance a plan for delivering desperately needed food and medical aid to Gaza’s civilian population. At the time of his visit, Israel had imposed sweeping restrictions on the entry of food, fuel and other essential goods into Gaza, a policy that the United Nations and multiple humanitarian organizations have warned has driven a large share of Gaza’s population into acute famine and food insecurity.
Beyond the explosive claim about Witkoff, Smotrich used the conference platform to double down on his longstanding ultranationalist expansionist agenda, calling for permanent Israeli territorial annexation of parts of Lebanon. He argued that “There is only one thing that hurts the enemy – land. Whoever messes with us will lose land for ever. A security zone needs to be created for years in Lebanon,” adding in a separate conversation with journalist Amit Segal that Israel would ultimately need to formalize permanent control over captured Lebanese territory.
This latest rhetoric aligns with Smotrich’s repeated public calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian residents from Gaza to make way for new Jewish Israeli settlements. Last December, he stated publicly: “We cannot live with two million antisemitic Nazis who live off hatred of Israel … That is why we need to encourage their emigration and settle Gaza.” Months earlier, he claimed former U.S. President Donald Trump backed a plan to remove Gazans from the enclave, saying “He supports his own plan of removing the Gazans from Gaza, so our kids won’t have to grow up within a spitting distance from two million Nazis who want to butcher, murder and rape.”
Smotrich already faces mounting international legal scrutiny over his actions in occupied Palestinian territories. Independent regional outlet Middle East Eye has reported that the prosecutor’s office of the International Criminal Court has submitted a sealed application for an arrest warrant against Smotrich, covering alleged crimes committed in the occupied West Bank. The proposed charges listed in the application include forced displacement, forced population transfer, persecution, and apartheid, according to the outlet’s reporting.
Middle East Eye confirmed that it reached out to the White House for comment on Smotrich’s allegation against Witkoff, requesting confirmation of whether the remarks were made. No response from the White House had been received by the time of the outlet’s publication. The outlet, which provides independent, on-the-ground coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region, did not immediately offer independent verification of Smotrich’s claim.