By News18,Vani Mehrotra

Copyright news18

Benjamin Netanyahu’s address at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday was marred by mass protests and walkouts as scores of delegates exited the hall as the Israeli Prime Minister took the stage, and condemned the Palestinian support as a “mark of shame”.
While some attendees in the balcony gave him a standing ovation, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters blocked traffic near Times Square in New York.
“Over time, many world leaders buckled. They buckled under the pressure of a biased media, radical Islamist constituencies and antisemitic mobs. There’s a familiar saying, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Well, for many countries here, when the going got tough, you caved,” Netanyahu said.

Attendees of the UN General Assembly stage a mass walkout as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enters the hall for his address. pic.twitter.com/amZiL1W45g
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“Behind closed doors, many of the leaders who publicly condemn us privately thank us. They tell me how much they value Israel’s superb intelligence services that have prevented, time and again, terrorist attacks in their capitals,” he added, amid the walkout.
NETANYAHU DENIES ACCUSATIONS OF GENOCIDE
During his address, Netanyahu denied accusations of “genocide” in Gaza and using “starvation” as a tactic. He also sharply denounced Western countries for embracing Palestinian statehood, accusing them of sending the message that “murdering Jews pays off.”
Netanyahu vowed to block a Palestinian state, accusing European leaders who recently recognised one of pushing his country into “national suicide” and rewarding Hamas.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, the Israeli leader pushed back in his harshest terms yet against a flurry of diplomatic moves by leading US allies that deepened Israel’s international isolation over its conduct of a nearly two-year-old war in Gaza.
“This week, the leaders of France, Britain, Australia, Canada and other countries unconditionally recognised a Palestinian state,” he said.
“They did so after the horrors committed by Hamas on October 7, horrors praised on that day by nearly 90 per cent of the Palestinian population.”
Calling it a “mark of shame,” Netanyahu said, “You know what message the leaders who recognise the Palestinian state this week sent to the Palestinians? It’s a very clear message, murdering Jews pays off.”
NETANYAHU OUTLINES IRAN’s TERROR, LEBANON ATTACKS
Netanyahu also held up a map which he said illustrated “Iran’s terror axis.”
He then went on to outline Israeli operations across the region, including targeted strikes and assassinations, and claimed Israel had reshaped the Middle East.
Referring to a recent operation in Lebanon, Netanyahu remarked, “You remember those beepers, the pagers, we paged Hezbollah, and believe me, they got the message.”
Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) (Photo: Reuters)
The Israeli leader, who faces an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant over alleged war crimes, spoke of the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, senior Hamas operatives, Houthi leaders and Iranian scientists.
He also took credit for the downfall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, though he did not refer to the rebel offensive that led to Assad’s fall.
With more countries joining the list of those endorsing Palestinian independence, the most right-wing government in Israeli history has made its strongest declaration in years that there will be no Palestinian state as it pushes on with its fight against Hamas following the militants’ October 7, 2023, rampage in Israel.
WHAT HAMAS SAID OF NETANYAHU’s SPEECH BOYCOTT
According to AFP, Hamas said that the boycott of Netanyahu’s speech showed the “growing global solidarity with the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state”.
It also said the mass walkout of delegations before Netanyahu’s speech showed Israel’s “isolation” as a result of the Gaza war.
Reuters quoted the Hamas-run Gaza government media office as saying that Netanyahu’s speech was “filled with lies and blatant contradictions” and condemned it as a “desperate attempt to justify the war crimes and acts of genocide.”
“Boycotting Netanyahu’s speech is one manifestation of Israel’s isolation and the consequences of the war of extermination,” Taher al-Nunu, the media adviser to the head of Hamas’s political bureau, was quoted as saying by AFP.
Hamas has offered to release all remaining hostages, only about 20 of whom are said to be alive out of a total of 48, in exchange for Israel agreeing to end the war and withdrawing from Gaza, according to Reuters.
The group’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 65,549 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
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