As first reported by the Nine newspapers, the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, is considering denying Zvi Yehezkeli’s visa into the country based on his previous inflammatory comments.

The TV journalist is due to appear at two events in Sydney and Melbourne in March, supported by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) and other groups, alongside the former Israeli president Reuven Rivlin.

Yehezkeli, who works on Israeli TV channel i24 as an Arab affairs commentator, is no stranger to controversy in recent years. On air, he said that Israel should have responded to Palestinian militant group Hamas’ 7 October attack by killing 100,000 Gazans.

“I know that those 100,000 will not all be Hamas members,” he said, after estimating Hamas only had around 20,000 members in the besieged strip.