Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will fight until “total victory” in its ongoing war on Gaza and vowed to continue attacks on the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah amid hopes for a ceasefire. -fire that could prevent an all-out regional war is fading.
Several delegations exited as Netanyahu approached the lectern to speak while supporters in the gallery applauded.
“I had no intention of coming here this year. My country is at war and fighting for its life,” Netanyahu said on Friday.
“But after hearing the lies and slander uttered against my country by many speakers on this platform, I decided to come here and set the record straight.”
Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed more than 41,500 Palestinians and injured more than 96,000 others since October 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
More than half of those killed were women and children, including around 1,300 children under the age of two.
Israel launched the assault on Gaza in response to an attack by Hamas in southern Israel that killed at least 1,139 people, most of them civilians, according to an Tel Aviv Tribune tally based on figures Israeli officials, with around 250 others captured.
The Israeli leader told the 193-member assembly that the Palestinian group Hamas, which governs Gaza, should play no role in rebuilding the territory.
“If Hamas remains in power, it will regroup…and attack Israel again and again…So Hamas must go,” he told the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.
The United States, alongside Egypt and Qatar, tried unsuccessfully to achieve a ceasefire that would end the war and guarantee the release of captives.
“This war can end now. All that is needed is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms and release all the hostages,” Netanyahu said.
“But if they don’t – if they don’t – we will fight until we achieve total victory.” Total victory. Nothing can replace it. “
He said Israeli forces destroyed “90 percent” of Hamas’ rockets and killed or captured half of its forces.
Hamas accused Netanyahu of telling “blatant lies” in his speech.
Netanyahu “continued his series of blatant lies and intensified his threats against the people of the region, while expanding his circle of crimes to include our people in Lebanon,” a statement from the Palestinian group said.
Tel Aviv Tribune senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said the US government had given Israel the green light to use self-defense as justification for its war on Gaza by drawing a parallel between the Hamas attack on 7 October and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“They then continued to protect him, arm him, finance him and defend him at the United Nations. This is why we must remember that Netanyahu has the arrogance to come to the UN and lecture to the world, because the United States supports him, a war criminal,” he said.
“Enough is enough”
The prime minister also told world leaders that his country “will continue to degrade” the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah until it achieves its objectives along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost every day since October 8, when the Iran-aligned group fired rockets into Israel in what it sees as an act of solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Most of these exchanges have been limited to the region around the Israeli-Lebanese border. But the Israeli military has significantly intensified its attacks against Hezbollah in recent days, killing more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday in a wave of air raids, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
“Israel has every right to eliminate this threat and bring our citizens home safely. And that is exactly what we are doing…we will continue to degrade Hezbollah until all of our goals are achieved,” Netanyahu said.
“Imagine if terrorists turned El Paso and San Diego into ghost towns… How long would the U.S. government tolerate this? he said, clenching his fist emphatically.
“Yet Israel has tolerated this intolerable situation for almost a year. Well, I came here today to say: enough is enough.
Israel and the Lebanese group have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border.
On Wednesday evening, the United States, France and other allies jointly called for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire to allow negotiations as fears grow that the violent escalation in recent days – after 11 months of cross-border firefights – does not degenerate into all-out war.
The United Nations said more than 90,000 people have been displaced since Monday in Lebanon.
The two speakers who preceded Netanyahu on Friday each criticized the war waged by Israel against Gaza. “Mr Netanyahu, stop this war now,” Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said as he closed his speech by banging on the podium.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also denounced the Israeli attack on Gaza. “It’s not just a conflict. This is a systematic massacre of innocent people in Palestine,” he said.