An Israeli minister has been suspended from government meetings “until further notice”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said, after suggesting to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza.

According to AFP, Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, an ultranationalist politician part of Netnayahu’s ruling coalition, told Israel’s Kol Barama radio that he was not entirely satisfied with the scale of Israel’s retaliation in the Palestinian territory.

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”.

PM Netanyahu’s office quickly responded to the minister’s remarks, issuing a statement in which it described them as “disconnected from reality,” adding that Israel was trying to spare “non-combatants” in Gaza.

Following the outcry over his remarks, Eliyahu later said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that his statement about the atomic bomb was “metaphorical”.

Israel has never admitted to having a nuclear bomb.