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IDF Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi on Monday slammed Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi for saying "more research" was needed to prove that the Holocaust has happened.
“You don’t need to be a historian or researcher to understand the horrors of the Holocaust – you need to be human,” he said speaking at the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland.
“We just toured the gas chambers, saw the crematoria, the very stones scream the murder of the Jewish people. Whoever lies and denies the painful historic truth now, will easily lie in the future. This is another reminder that people like this can’t be allowed to hold any weapons of mass destruction."
Raisi made the remarks during a 60 Minutes interview after being asked whether he believed that 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust to which he replied "there are some signs that it happened" and added it should be further investigated.
Raisi’s remarks stirred an uproar in Israel. Prime Minister Yair Lapid tweeted out images from the Holocaust with the caption “some signs”.
President Isaac Herzog said: "Mr. Raisi, on my desk in Jerusalem there is one photograph. The numbers speak for themselves." Herzog referred to a photo of a Holocaust survivor with a prisoner number tattooed on her hand.
Chairman of Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum Dani Dayan labeled the Iranian president a "vile antisemite" and called his remarks "dangerous and deserve condemnation."