JERUSALEM (dpa-AFX) - In a speech boycotted by dozens of delegates, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used his address to the UN General Assembly to defend Israel's attacks against Iran as a matter of national survival.
Many delegations left the General Assembly Hall Thursday as Netanyahu took the podium, just hours after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas addressed the gathering via video after being denied a visa to enter the United States.
'Devastating Iran's nuclear facilities was hard. But for me, it was one of the easiest decisions I've ever had to make as Prime Minister. Because if we hadn't done it, we'd all be dead,' Netanyahu told the Assembly.
The Israeli leader also fiercely defended the military campaigns in Gaza, rejecting accusations of genocide in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave as 'the greatest lie of the century,' and described the violence in the West Bank as the work of a few 'juvenile delinquents.'
It has been nearly three years since the 2023 October 7 cross-border attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups that killed more than 1,200 Israelis, the abduction of 251 hostages, and the subsequent launch of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip. Those operations have resulted in the death of more than 73,000 Palestinians according to Gaza health authorities, with many thousands missing under rubble.
Netanyahu noted that, for the past three years, Israel has been fighting on seven fronts - 'Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, militias in Iraq, militias in Syria, Palestinian terrorists in Judea and Samaria.'
Citing an 'eighth front' in Israel's war for survival, Netanyahu accused international media, social media and several governments of spreading anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives, singling out Qatar and Turkey.
Netanyahu criticized Western governments that have challenged Israeli policies and argued that many countries were applying a double standard to Israel.
He also took a swipe at the Mayor of New York City, claiming that Jews no longer felt safe there since Zohran Mamdani took office.
Mamdani's office issued a statement in response, saying that Netanyahu 'used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians.'
The Israeli and Palestinian leaders presented sharply different accounts of the conflict and its causes while their counterparts from across the world weighed in on the far-reaching impacts of the ongoing crisis in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that the conflict threatens the very existence of the Palestinian people.
He described the war in Gaza as a 'genocidal war' that had created an unprecedented human tragedy.
Abbas called for the reunification of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank. He warned against allowing 'another 'Nakba' to occur, referring to the permanent mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
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