"Flatten Gaza" / "turn it into a parking lot"
Recurring phrasing from Israeli and American politicians and commentators since October 2023.
What it signals
Casual annihilationism — the deaths of the people under the flattening are priced in so completely they no longer require mention. The throwaway register is the point: mass death as a figure of speech.
How to answer
De-metaphorize it: 'A parking lot where two million people currently live. Say the middle step.' Making speakers own the missing sentence is usually unanswerable.