Delegates walk out as Netanyahu defends Israeli military campaigns at UN

Dozens of diplomats walked out of the United Nations General Assembly as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium before defending Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza, Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East and rejecting accusations of genocide.

“We’re going to win. We have no other choice,” Netanyahu said. Addressing those who left the chamber, he called them “moral cowards” and invited any others who objected to leave. He also praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s leadership and defended joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.

Netanyahu attacked several critics, calling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a “tyrant” and accusing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of making Jewish residents feel unsafe. Mamdani responded that Netanyahu had repeated “baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians,” and cited the International Criminal Court warrant accusing the Israeli leader of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Netanyahu denies wrongdoing and denies that Israel is committing genocide.

Earlier, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the assembly by video after being denied a U.S. visa. He accused Israel of subjecting Palestinians in Gaza to killing, destruction, starvation, displacement and a “genocidal war,” while warning that settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank threatened Palestinian existence and a two-state solution.

Outside the UN, large groups protested Netanyahu’s visit in Midtown Manhattan. NPR reported that about 100 people were arrested as demonstrators chanted “Let Gaza live” and “the whole world is watching.”