Gaza Herald — Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has released an AI-generated election campaign video celebrating the destruction of the Gaza Strip and ridiculing Palestinians who refuse to abandon their homeland, turning the devastation caused by Israel’s genocidal war into political propaganda designed to promote the mass displacement of Gaza’s population.
The video, published on Ben-Gvir’s official X account ahead of Israel’s October 27 parliamentary elections, presents a bleak vision of Gaza in 2030, depicting the Palestinian territory as an abandoned wasteland with destroyed schools, infrastructure, and port facilities.
Rather than acknowledging the suffering of Palestinians who have endured years of bombardment, displacement, hunger, and the destruction of their communities, the Israeli minister uses the devastation to promote a political message suggesting that Palestinians should leave Gaza altogether.
One of the video’s most provocative scenes features a donkey alongside the slogan, “You’d have to be a donkey to stay in Gaza,” openly mocking Palestinians who remain determined to live on their land despite the catastrophic conditions created by Israeli military operations.
The campaign forms part of Ben-Gvir’s broader political agenda to remove Palestinians from Gaza, establish Israeli settlements in the territory, and consolidate Israeli control over land that he has repeatedly declared should belong to Israel.
Gaza’s Destruction Turned Into Election Propaganda
The AI-generated footage depicts Gaza as a devastated and largely deserted territory, with ruined buildings and destroyed public infrastructure presented as the backdrop for Ben-Gvir’s vision of its future.
The video’s portrayal of a ruined Gaza is particularly disturbing because it draws directly on the destruction inflicted during Israel’s military campaign, which has devastated residential neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, universities, roads, water networks, and other infrastructure essential to civilian life.
Instead of presenting this destruction as a humanitarian catastrophe requiring reconstruction and accountability, Ben-Gvir’s campaign uses it to suggest that Palestinians who choose to remain in Gaza are making an irrational decision.
The insulting comparison to a donkey transforms the suffering of a population struggling to survive into a campaign slogan, while portraying the abandonment of Palestinian land as the only reasonable response to the devastation.
The message also disregards the fact that Palestinians have repeatedly rejected forced displacement, even after losing their homes, relatives, livelihoods, and access to basic services.
For families who have survived repeated Israeli attacks and displacement, remaining in Gaza is inseparable from their attachment to their homeland and their determination not to surrender their right to live there.
Ben-Gvir’s video attempts to turn that determination into an object of ridicule while presenting the destruction of Palestinian communities as an opportunity for political and demographic transformation.
A Plan to Remove Palestinians Under the Label of ‘Voluntary Migration’
The video accompanies Ben-Gvir’s campaign proposal for the displacement of approximately 1.86 million Palestinians from Gaza through what he describes as a program of “voluntary migration.”
Although the proposal uses language suggesting individual choice, it is being promoted against the backdrop of a territory devastated by Israeli military attacks, where widespread destruction, economic collapse, and severe shortages of essential goods have made daily survival extraordinarily difficult.
The distinction is central to the controversy surrounding the plan: when a population has been subjected to prolonged bombardment, mass displacement, destruction of homes, and restrictions on access to food and other necessities, presenting departure as a freely chosen option ignores the conditions pushing people toward displacement.
Ben-Gvir has repeatedly advocated the occupation of Gaza, the removal of its Palestinian population, and the establishment of Israeli settlements inside the territory.
His latest campaign video brings these objectives together by depicting a future in which Gaza’s Palestinian communities have effectively disappeared, while using the destruction left by Israel’s war to justify their departure.
The proposal raises serious concerns under international humanitarian law, which prohibits the forcible transfer or deportation of protected civilians from occupied territory except under narrowly defined circumstances.
Describing population removal as voluntary does not, by itself, establish that people are making a free choice, particularly when their living conditions have been devastated by military operations and they face severe insecurity.
More Than 74,000 Palestinians Killed as Ben-Gvir Celebrates Devastation
The video was released after more than three years of Israeli attacks that have killed over 74,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 175,000, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
The military campaign has also destroyed an estimated 90% of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, leaving large areas of the territory uninhabitable and forcing families to seek shelter in damaged buildings, overcrowded displacement camps, and makeshift tents.
Behind the images of ruined streets and abandoned buildings are Palestinian families who have lost children, parents, homes, and entire neighborhoods, while thousands of wounded people continue to face difficult conditions because of the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.
The devastation portrayed in Ben-Gvir’s video is therefore not an imagined future disconnected from reality, but a political representation of destruction that Palestinians have already experienced.
By using that destruction to argue that residents should leave, the campaign effectively presents the consequences of Israel’s military operations as justification for further displacement.
The video also comes despite the ceasefire agreement that took effect in October 2025, as Israeli forces have continued carrying out attacks, opening fire, shelling areas of Gaza, and demolishing Palestinian structures.
The continuation of these operations has compounded the destruction and insecurity facing Palestinians attempting to rebuild their lives.
Ben-Gvir’s Anti-Palestinian Campaign Ahead of Israeli Elections
The release of the video comes as Ben-Gvir seeks to strengthen support for his far-right Jewish Power party ahead of Israel’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for October 27.
His campaign has increasingly emphasized confrontational policies targeting Palestinians, including measures against Palestinian communities and religious institutions.
On Sunday, Arab political parties accused Ben-Gvir of exploiting his actions against Palestinians to mobilize supporters and intimidate Palestinian Arab voters ahead of the election.
The AI-generated Gaza video represents another example of this approach, using openly hostile language and provocative imagery to appeal to voters who support aggressive policies toward Palestinians.
Ben-Gvir’s political messaging is not limited to advocating military control over Gaza. It also seeks to normalize the idea that the Palestinian population should be removed from the territory, while portraying such an outcome as both desirable and achievable.
The campaign’s reliance on artificial intelligence adds another dimension to this messaging, allowing the minister to construct an imagined future for Gaza in which the destruction of Palestinian communities is presented as a political achievement rather than a humanitarian disaster.
Election Campaign Unfolds Amid Political Competition
Ben-Gvir’s video was released during an intensely contested election campaign, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political bloc facing opposition parties in a struggle for control of the 120-seat Knesset.
According to a Channel 12 opinion poll published Monday, opposition parties were projected to win 55 seats, while Netanyahu’s governing coalition was projected to secure 51, leaving both sides short of the 61 seats required for a parliamentary majority.
Against this political backdrop, Ben-Gvir’s campaign places the future of Gaza and the displacement of its Palestinian population at the center of his electoral messaging.
His use of the territory’s destruction as campaign material illustrates how policies involving Palestinian expulsion and settlement expansion are being promoted to voters as political objectives.
Palestinians Reject Expulsion Despite Israel’s Destruction
For Palestinians in Gaza, the campaign’s message directly confronts their right to remain in their homeland after years of devastating military attacks.
Despite the destruction of residential areas, the collapse of public services, and the loss of countless homes and livelihoods, Palestinians have repeatedly expressed their determination to remain on their land and reject proposals for permanent displacement.
The right of Palestinians to remain in Gaza cannot be reduced to a question of whether their neighborhoods have been destroyed or whether rebuilding will be difficult.
Ben-Gvir’s latest video instead attempts to transform the destruction of those neighborhoods into an argument for removing their inhabitants, using artificial intelligence and electoral messaging to promote a vision of Gaza emptied of much of its Palestinian population.
As the Israeli election approaches, the video exposes how the suffering of Palestinians is being used as a political instrument, with the devastation caused by Israel’s war presented not as a catastrophe to be remedied but as an opportunity to advance the expulsion of Gaza’s residents and expand Israeli control over their homeland.
