RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Sunday condemned remarks from an Israeli minister who appeared to voice openness to the idea of Israel carrying out a nuclear strike on Gaza.

The Israeli minister’s comments showed the penetration of “extremism and brutality” among members of the Israeli government, a Saudi Foreign Ministry statement said.

“Moreover, not dismissing the minister and only freezing his membership constitutes the utmost disregard for all human standards and values,” it added.

On Sunday Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu was suspended from government meetings “until further notice” after suggesting in an interview dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

Eliyahu, an ultranationalist politician and part of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, told Israel’s Kol Barama radio he was not entirely satisfied with the scale of Israel’s retaliation after Hamas fighters carried out a deadly attack on Oct. 7 inside southern Israel.

When the interviewer asked whether the Israeli minister advocated dropping “some kind of atomic bomb” on the Gaza Strip “to kill everyone,” Eliyahu replied: “That’s one option.”

Netanyahu’s office said Eliyahu’s statements “are not based in reality. Israel and the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) are operating in accordance with the highest standards of international law to avoid harming innocents. We will continue to do so until our victory.”

Eliyahu was also suspended from government meetings “until further notice,” Netanyahu’s office said, stressing that Israel was seeking to spare “”non-combatants.”

More than 9,700 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched operations in Gaza according to local authorities, stirring widening international concern at Israel’s tactics. The Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, Israeli officials say.

The crisis prompted another troubleshooting visit to the Middle East by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the weekend.

“Obviously, that was an objectionable statement, and the prime minister made very clear that he (Eliyahu) wasn’t speaking on behalf of the government,” a senior US State Department official said.

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned the Israeli minister’s statement as a “serious incitement to a war crime and a disregard for humanitarian and moral values and international laws.”

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Affairs condemned Eliyahu’s “racist, inflammatory, and provocative” statements.

It described the comment as a “call for genocide and a hate crime that cannot be tolerated.”

The ministry denounced it as a “condemnable incitement to murder and commit war crimes, in addition to the crimes committed against the people of the Gaza Strip.”

A spokesperson for Hamas said Eliyahu represented “unprecedented criminal Israeli terrorism (that) constitutes a danger to the entire region and the world.”

Benny Gantz, a centrist ex-general who joined Netanyahu from the opposition in the streamlined war Cabinet, said Eliyahu’s remarks had been damaging “and, even worse, added to the pain of the hostages’ families at home.”

Following the outcry over his remarks, Eliyahu later said in a social media post: “It is clear to anyone sensible that the nuclear remark was metaphorical.”

Israel has never admitted to having a nuclear bomb.