(LifeSiteNews) — According to Israeli “settlers” celebrating close to the Gaza border fence as Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians in the enclave rages on, the supposed one million children confined to the strip are all to be considered “Hamas” and “terrorists.”

Norwegian journalist Yama Wolasmal conducted a series of interviews of several of these religious Zionist settlers, highlights of which were released by UK news outlet Middle East Eye late in June.

When asked by Wolasmal weather he felt “the children in Gaza are innocent,” one of these men named Haim answered, “I can see how children are terrorists as well.”

The journalist went on to point out how they were having “a picnic here a couple of kilometers away from Gaza where the bombs are raining down,” and offering an alibi for the bombing, Haim said he had sympathy for the Gazans but “we really, really, really have no other choice.”

A second settler identified as David Fendel, was asked about the Palestinian civilians in the enclave, and he said the premise to the question was “a big lie,” “propaganda” and he was “insulted” by the question.

“All the children are Hamas and they’ll be very happy to see all of us burnt all over the world and they’ll destroy the whole world with that, the Christian world together with that,” he continued with a New York accent. “We don’t want them to die and that’s different from what they want.”

Ironically, as MEE reported, these settlers were happily “celebrating near the Gaza border” wherein, by April 2024 alone, Israel had dropped over 70,000 tons of explosives in the enclave. This was equivalent in magnitude to almost five of the single atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Furthermore, reliable reports from the Gaza governmental media office in May, 2025, stated that these numbers increased to 100,000 tons of explosives (equivalent to around 7 atomic bombs), with 62,000 Palestinians, including many children, being violently killed by incineration, shredding, crushing or the like, around 10,000 of whom are presumed trapped or dead under the rubble.

These bombings have also destroyed an estimated 69 percent of structures in Gaza including at least 245,000 homes.

READ: Bishop Strickland condemns ‘cruelty’ against Palestinians, forced removal from lands

As Fendel celebrated with other settlers outside what many authorities have described as Israel’s massive crime of genocide in Gaza, he affirmed he was “100%” blaming the 2.2 million Palestinians in the strip for the wrongdoing of 3,500 on October 7, “because they’re accomplices to the crime, they’re supportive of it and they were part of it.”

As a reflection of the objective moral law, international law considers collective punishment a war crime with the Forth Geneva Convention affirming that persons may not be “punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.”

Advocacy for ethnically cleansing ‘not extreme,’ views common in Israel

Fendel went on to admit he wanted all of the people of Gaza ethnically cleansed from the region, “we want them all displaced, 100%,” while confirming they planned to “for sure” resettle Gaza.

International law also stipulates that “deportation” or the “forcible transfer of (a) population” (ethnic cleansing) is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.

READ: Jewish Israelis confront Gaza genocide with photos of slain children

When challenged by Wolasmal regarding these extreme positions which violate international law, Fendel replied, “We’re not extreme.” He retorted proposing that ethnic cleansing “was done in World War II, it was done many times and brought peace to the world.”

While most Americans would like to believe such attitudes are rare in Israel, an early June poll released from Hebrew University in Jerusalem reveals that roughly 75 percent of Jewish Israelis agree with the statement that “there are no innocent people in Gaza,” which naturally includes the roughly one million Palestinian children who reside in the enclave.

READ: 75% of Jewish Israelis believe ‘there are no innocents in Gaza’: Hebrew University poll

Several other polls from the region corroborate these findings as do very many documented statements of explicit anti-Palestinian hate and genocidal malice from Israeli spiritual and political leaders over many years, which intensified following the Hamas breakout attack upon southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Settler terrorism against Palestinians in the West Bank

Within the interview, Wolasmal went on to challenge Haim about his living in the occupied West Bank “in a settlement which is built on private Palestinian land,” according to international law.

The settler rejected this description saying that “most of the (Palestinian) houses” around the settlement where he resides “are empty” to which the journalist pointed out this was in part due to settler violence against the Palestinians who lived there, a notion which Haim rejected as well.

“There are videos, you know this Haim,” Wolasmal retorted. “There are videos of settlers attacking Palestinian homes, burning them, burning their cars, threatening them, shooting at them. So how can a Palestinian family stay in a situation like this?” he asked.

“And we’re not talking about inside Israel. We’re talking about in the West Bank, which according to international law, belongs to the Palestinians,” he concluded, to which Haim simply said, “I don’t agree.”

Historic Christian town among Palestinian communities under siege from religious Zionist terrorists

Earlier this week, priests of the churches in Tabyeh, the last fully Christian town left in the West Bank, begged for help from “international actors” amid a destructive siege by Israeli settler terrorists.

“Israeli settlers are torching holy sites, destroying farmland, and terrorizing families. The priests of Taybeh are crying out for help. The world must hear them — and act,” tweeted human rights activist Jason Jones on Tuesday.

The statement from priests of the town’s Greek Orthodox Church, Latin Church, and Melkite Greek Catholic Church described the “ongoing and grave series of attacks” against the Christian town from these religious Zionist terrorists.

READ: Americans must wake up to the dangers of religious Zionists inciting violence in the Middle East

“On Monday, July 7, 2025, settlers deliberately set fire near the towns’ cemetery and the historic Church of St. George (Al-Khadr), dating back to the 5th century — one of the oldest religious landmarks in Palestine,” the priests shared, adding that it was only because of the swift response of local residents and firefighters that the damage was not “far more catastrophic.”

The priests went on to tell how settlers were destroying their family-owned agricultural lands without being stopped by Israeli law enforcement authorities. In doing so, they “cause direct harm to olive trees — a vital source of livelihood for the people of Tabyeh — and prevent farmers from accessing and cultivating their land,” they noted.

Religious Zionist settler violence common in Israeli occupied West Bank

Such violence perpetrated by Israeli terrorist settlers is in no way rare in the West Bank. During the calendar year of 2024, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) logged about 1,420 incidents of Israeli settler violence. “These incidents include settlers reportedly killing five Palestinians, including a child, and injuring 360 other Palestinians, including 35 children, and vandalising more than 26,100 Palestinian-owned trees.”

by the way, today another attack happened in masafer yatta. the victim, qussai, 17, isn’t an oscar winner, so people won’t hear about it, but here’s the video of masked settlers beating him with metal rods as his mom screams in the background, just in case pic.twitter.com/7Wh16Ugg7J

— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) March 28, 2025

Amnesty International had described these attacks as “part of a decades long state-backed campaign to dispossess, displace and oppress Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, under Israel’s system of apartheid.”

“Israeli forces have a track record of enabling settler violence and it is outrageous that once again Israeli forces stood by and in some cases took part in these brutal attacks,” states an April 2024 report.

Colonial ‘settlers’ espouse ideology of Jewish supremacy, ethnic cleansing, building of third Temple

Jewish “settlers” in the West Bank are most often associated with the influential international heresy of religious Zionism which embraces an ideology of radical Jewish supremacy and thus a justification for the horrendous violent crimes of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people as a means of taking over the Holy Land and building an exclusive Jewish ethno-state.

READ: Israeli extremist rabbis instruct soldiers heading to Gaza: ‘Kill all their children’

With the takeover of the land complete they aim to build a third temple for animal sacrifice in Jerusalem and welcome their Moshiach (Messiah) of whom their expectations share a close alignment with what Catholic authorities expect from the Antichrist. And from Jerusalem, these religious Zionists anticipate this figure to subject all other peoples under Noahide Laws, vanquishing Christianity as “idolatry,” and even executing the death penalty against Christians for this supposed crime.

The illegal settler communities also enjoy indirect financial support from billions in US taxpayer dollars which support Israel’s military forces and thus serve to assist settlers and settlements to effectively expand in the West Bank. Private American interests also provide significant funds to further develop illegal settlements, paramilitary groups and IDF units which operate in Gaza and the West Bank as well.

In July of last year the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s 58-year military occupation of internationally recognized Palestinian territory was illegal under international law. The United Nations General Assembly followed-up on this ruling in September overwhelmingly passing a resolution demanding Israel end its illegal occupation of these territories, including the evacuation of their settlements on the West Bank, within 12 months.

The unanimous and constant voices of the Catholic and Orthodox bishops in the region have characterized Israel’s illegal occupation of these Palestinian territories as the “root” aggression of the conflict, an ongoing “sin,” that must be resisted and remedied should there be any hope of peace in the region.

RELATED:

Expelling the Palestinian people has always been a goal of Zionism

How do Christians in the Holy Land understand the Israeli occupation of Palestine?

Christian leaders in the Holy Land rebuke Trump’s plan to relocate Palestinians

Did the Israeli government help establish Hamas to undermine a two-state solution?

Theologian explains why religious Zionism is ‘heresy,’ the Church is the ‘true Israel’

Holy Land bishops reaffirm Catholic Church’s rejection of ‘Christian Zionism’

Latin Patriarch says new Israeli gov’t has emboldened Jewish extremists to attack Christians

Christian leaders in the Holy Land rebuke Trump’s plan to relocate Palestinians

Israeli investigative reporter spat on, harassed in Jerusalem while dressed as a Catholic priest

‘Pro-life’ GOP starving 1 million children to death in Gaza, USCCB remains silent

Colonel Macgregor: ‘LifeSiteNews was exposing globalist warmongering long before most’

‘The West cannot hide’: Compelling documentary presents Israel’s ‘live stream genocide’ in Gaza