Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a defiant speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, as dozens of delegations walked out in protest and more than a hundred demonstrators were arrested on the streets of Manhattan. The walkout, led by representatives of Arab, Muslim and African nations, left large sections of the chamber visibly empty as Netanyahu took to the podium. "If there are any other moral cowards who haven't yet left this hall, please do so now," he said in remarks that appeared to have been prepared in advance for precisely that moment.
Netanyahu rejected as "the greatest lie of the century" accusations that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, arguing instead that Israel had acted to prevent a genocide against its own people. He defended joint military strikes carried out with the United States against Iran in February, thanking President Donald Trump for what he called an act "to save civilisation". He also levelled sharp criticism at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, labelling him a "tyrant" and accusing him of backing Hamas. The Turkish presidency swiftly rejected the remarks as incompatible with the UN's ideals of peace and dialogue. Netanyahu also attacked New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, calling him "the antisemitic mayor of New York" and claiming that many Jews no longer felt safe in the city since his election. Mamdani, who had previously pledged to have Netanyahu arrested under an International Criminal Court warrant — before acknowledging he lacked the authority to do so — responded that Netanyahu had "used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitise his genocide of Palestinians".
Earlier on Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the assembly by video link from Ramallah, after the United States denied him an entry visa for a second consecutive year. In a vote of 152 to 3, the assembly approved his remote address, with only the US, Israel and Paraguay opposed. Abbas described the situation in Gaza as a "genocidal war" creating an "unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe", and appealed to the international community not to remain silent while weapons continued to flow to Israel.
Outside the UN building on First Avenue, the day brought wave after wave of protest. Jewish Voice for Peace, a progressive Jewish organisation, and the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America organised a sit-in that drew more than 400 participants, including politicians, activists and celebrities. Actors Susan Sarandon and Elliott Page, congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, and whistleblower Chelsea Manning were among those detained; police confirmed that more than 100 people in total were arrested for disorderly conduct, all subsequently released. Later in the evening, thousands more joined a separate march towards UN headquarters organised by the Palestinian Youth Movement and The People's Forum. The protests also revealed divisions within New York's Jewish community: progressive Jewish groups held their own demonstration calling for a ceasefire, while pro-Netanyahu counter-protesters gathered nearby, and the ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta also took to the streets.
The day encapsulated the mounting pressures on Netanyahu, who returns to Israel facing national elections on 27 October, the first since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 that killed roughly 1,200 people. His combative UN performance — designed to shore up his image as a resolute defender of Israel internationally — played out against a backdrop of growing global isolation and a notable generational shift in American public opinion. A Pew Research Centre survey from May found that only 18 per cent of Americans aged 18 to 29 held a favourable view of the Israeli government, compared with 47 per cent among those aged 65 and older. For several hours on Thursday, both the streets of New York and the UN General Assembly hall became parallel stages for the same unresolved international argument over Gaza.