Israeli Minister Ben Gvir Tells Freed Hostage: I'll Try to Let You Personally Hang Palestinian Prisoners

Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir told a former Israeli soldier he would "try and turn the world upside down" to let him personally execute Palestinian prisoners, according to footage from a podcast interview published Saturday.

The request came from Rom Braslavski, who was working security at the Nova festival on October 7, 2023, taken captive in Gaza, and released in October 2025. In the first episode of his new podcast, October 8, Braslavski told Ben Gvir he wanted to be "the one who hangs them," adding: "I don't want a rope. With my own hands I will execute every terrorist in the State of Israel."

Ben Gvir did not push back. He called Braslavski "the right person in the right place... to hang and execute them one by one" and said watching freed captives execute Palestinian prisoners was "one of his dreams." Of the prisoners themselves, he said: "They don't deserve to live."

A minister who runs the prisons

Ben Gvir's ministry oversees Israel's Prison Service, where Palestinian detainees have reported torture and sexual assault. Earlier this month an Israeli court blocked his plan to install crocodile-filled moats around facilities holding Palestinian prisoners. In May, parliament passed a bill from his party allowing public trials and death sentences for detainees accused of involvement in the October 7 attacks.

As of June, at least 104 Palestinian inmates had died in Israeli custody since 2023, according to figures cited by rights groups. More than 9,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli detention facilities. During the interview, Ben Gvir said of Palestinian prisoners: "They are suffering, it's hard for them, it's bad for them, and I'm glad it's bad for them."

"Not even people"

The conversation extended to Gaza, where Ben Gvir called for intensified killing. "I think we should carry out targeted assassinations in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night," he said, specifying this should not be limited to people posing "an immediate threat." He described unnamed Palestinians in Gaza as "not worthy of life" and said "They're not even people."

Ben Gvir said he disagrees with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he suggested has faced US pressure to limit strikes on Gaza. He repeated his call to annex the territory outright: "I see all of Gaza as ours," he said, calling for settlements built "throughout Gaza," and for mass emigration of Palestinians to other countries, with an explicit exception for accused fighters: "no emigration, nothing, just to kill them one by one."

Legal exposure

Ben Gvir has previously been examined by the International Criminal Court for a possible arrest warrant over alleged crimes against Palestinians, and has been targeted by international sanctions campaigns over his rhetoric. A recent poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute found 22 percent of Israeli Jewish citizens favor expelling the Palestinian population from the West Bank, and 38 percent support annexation, figures that track with Ben Gvir's public positions even as his party polls in single digits nationally.

Occupation Watch notes that a sitting cabinet minister endorsing extrajudicial execution of detainees on record, rather than distancing himself from the request, is a statement of policy intent from a man who controls the prison system where Palestinians are already dying in custody.