An Israeli journalist who once said 100,000 Gazans should have been killed after Hamas’ 7 October attack could be stopped from entering Australia ahead of a fundraising event next month.

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.

In a statement, Burke indicated he was still considering Yehezkeli’s visa application.

“It always surprises me when somebody who has made the sorts of comments that this individual has, advertises a speaking tour before they’ve even received a visa,” he said.

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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.

Following the death of the Reuters journalist Hussam al-Masri and 19 others in an Israeli strike in August last year, Yehezkeli accused journalists killed in Gaza of being “terrorist journalists”.

“If Israel has decided to eliminate the journalists, better late than never,” he said.

Yehezkeli later apologised for his comments in a video post, saying he “certainly did not call for killing journalists, only those [who] use ‘press’ credentials as cover to fight, which makes them terrorists in every respect”.

In August last year, tensions between Australia and Israel soured after Burke denied a visa application from the far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman. Rothman described Palestinian children in Gaza as “enemies” and called for Israel’s total control of the West Bank.

The row escalated over the coming days as Israel revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority, citing Australia’s “unjustified refusal” to grant visas to Israeli figures.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also lashed Anthony Albanese as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.

Last month the Jewish influencer Sammy Yahood was barred from entering the country for his tour also supported by the AJA.

Burke said “spreading hatred is not a good reason to come”.