As his speech was announced, most delegations withdrew from the UN General Assembly hall in protest against Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of "committing war crimes and crimes against humanity" in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Times Square, near the UN headquarters, witnessed a massive demonstration involving thousands of protesters from several US states. Protesters raised Palestinian flags and chanted slogans denouncing war crimes and accusing Netanyahu of committing "genocide" in Gaza, refusing to allow him to take the UN podium.
Netanyahu's speech barely ended before it was met with a torrent of criticism, even from within Israel itself. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said on his X account, "The world today witnessed a tired prime minister who was crying in a speech full of tired tricks."
Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman, speaking on the same platform, considered Netanyahu's speech "merely a speech by a party leader, not a prime minister for all."
For its part, the government media office in the Gaza Strip described Netanyahu's speech as "misleading," containing "eight major lies and dozens of flimsy claims," asserting that it was a failed attempt to justify war crimes and genocide against Palestinians.
The Government Media Office clarified that Netanyahu claimed to defend Israeli prisoners, while the reality confirms that "his criminal government seeks to achieve the declared goals of his cabinet ministers: murder, genocide, total destruction, and forced displacement, without any regard for the lives of prisoners."
The statement added that Netanyahu spoke of a war on "seven fronts," including Gaza, and claimed that civilians were not prevented from leaving. This contradicts figures proving that 94% of the martyrs were Palestinian civilians and that the occupation committed a complete genocide by dropping more than 200,000 tons of explosives on residential neighborhoods, resulting in the deaths of more than 64,000 civilians.
Regarding international support for Tel Aviv, the office noted that Netanyahu "claimed that many leaders supported Israel after the October 7 events, but he admitted that this support had evaporated. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of the world's countries have not and will not support the crime of genocide. Indeed, the growing international recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people came as a natural result of exposing the false narrative of the Israeli occupation."
The office also denied Netanyahu's allegations of aid theft by the resistance, asserting that the occupation was the cause of civilian starvation and overseeing "death traps" that killed hundreds of starving people, including children.
The statement concluded by asserting that "these lies will not change the truth," emphasizing that the world has become increasingly aware of the nature of the Israeli occupation as a colonial-settler force. It held the US administration responsible for the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and demanded an end to the genocide, a withdrawal from the Strip, the opening of the crossings, and the entry of food and medicine, in addition to completing the steps toward recognizing the Palestinian state.
With American support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving 65,549 martyrs and 167,518 wounded, most of them children and women, and a famine that has claimed the lives of 442 Palestinians, including 147 children.
