Umer Bin AjmalIsrael's defence minister has vowed to inflict the biblical "10 Plagues of Egypt" on Yemen's Houthis after they stepped up their missile attacks against Israel.
"The Houthis are firing missiles at Israel again. A plague of darkness, a plague of the firstborn – we will complete all ten plagues," Israel Katz posted on X on Thursday.
He invoked the ten disasters — from water turning into blood to death of the firstborn — that the Book of Exodus says were unleashed by God on Egypt to force Pharaoh to free the enslaved Israelites.
But what does Katz mean by invoking a biblical reference?
He calls upon an array of divine punishments: darkness, hail, locusts, death of the firstborn — a catalogue of terror, an ultimatum rendered in biblical idiom. He projects an image of total, uncompromising devastation.
This matters because Israel already faces grave accusations of killing tens of thousands of civilians and ignoring multiple international conventions on war. Experts and scholars say its military campaign in Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide.
It has already been established by the UN that Israel's blockade of food has resulted in hunger crisis in Gaza, where hundreds have been killed by the forced starvation.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars, the world's leading body of genocide experts, passed a resolution this week declaring that Israel's policies and actions in Gaza satisfy the criteria set out in Article II of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. Eighty-six percent of voting members backed the resolution.
That resolution reflects mounting scholarly consensus.
Academics, from Holocaust historians to genocide specialists, have warned that Israel's systematic attacks on civilians, infrastructure, the denial of basic necessities, and forced displacement appear to align with genocidal practices.
Amos Goldberg, a Holocaust historian, said simply: "What is happening in Gaza is a genocide because Gaza does not exist anymore." Raz Segal, another genocide scholar, called Israel's blockade "a textbook case of genocide", pointing to deliberate starvation and destruction of society.
Now Katz echoes biblical fury and divine vengeance. That link matters.
To add another layer: early in the Gaza war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical figure of Amalek — an archetypal existential enemy whom the Israelites were commanded to destroy absolutely.
At the start of the ground invasion, he told soldiers: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible", later affirming, "we do remember".
South Africa's legal team at the International Court of Justice flagged that reference in their genocide case against Israel, warning that such rhetoric echoes a directive to utterly exterminate the Amalekites — and may signal genocidal intent.
The rhetoric of plagues, the invocation of Amalek – they both convey one message: Israel projects a posture of irreversible, total punishment.
In Gaza, scholars say that posture has already produced outcomes indistinguishable from genocide. Now, with the Houthis in Yemen, that posture resurfaces.
