Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the
United Nations General Assembly on Friday was an attempt at a carefully staged
and combative defense of Israel’s aggressive campaign in Gaza and its wider
military actions across the region. Yet the performance could not mask the
widening gulf between his narrative and the findings of international
institutions, public-health agencies, and human-rights organizations.
Netanyahu employed one prominent map, alongside visual aids
and rhetorical flourishes critics deemed theatrical props, and he repeated the
phrase “Israel must finish the job.”
The line landed amid visible diplomatic rebuke - dozens of
delegations staged walkouts and large sections of the Assembly remained
conspicuously empty, while thousands of demonstrators in New York took to the
streets demanding a ceasefire and accountability.
Independent UN mechanisms and leading rights groups have
drawn a far grimmer picture than the one Netanyahu offered. In a September
report, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that
the Israeli conduct in Gaza meets the legal threshold of genocide.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented
patterns of indiscriminate bombardment, forced displacement, and the deliberate
deprivation of essential services that they say amount to war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
Public-health agencies and UN partners, drawing on figures
from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, estimate that more than 65,500 people have been
killed since October 2023.
The war has forced the displacement of up to 90 percent of
the population, while famine conditions have taken hold in several areas. The
World Health Organization has confirmed hundreds of deaths from malnutrition,
many of them children.
Beyond Gaza, Israel’s military actions have extended across
the region, with deadly strikes in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, where more than
1,065 people were killed in the 12-Day War. Attacks have also targeted sites in
Qatar and other parts of West Asia, widening the conflict’s footprint and
drawing condemnation for what critics describe as a campaign of
destabilization.
Netanyahu sought to rebut such charges by pointing to
evacuation orders and intelligence claims, and by portraying Iran as the
backbone of a regional “terror axis.”
Those assertions did not persuade critics who point out that
warnings alone cannot absolve a belligerent of responsibility for operations
that hit hospitals, shelters, and schools or that substantially hinder
lifesaving aid.
The repeated refrain to “finish the job” in an enclave of
nearly two million civilians risks being read not as a constrained military
objective but as justification for actions with catastrophic humanitarian and
legal consequences.
A particularly contentious decision during the UN appearance
was the transmission of the speech into Gaza via loudspeakers on the border
and, according to multiple reports, through mobile devices.
Framed by Tel Aviv as communication aimed at captives, the
broadcasts were described by many humanitarian advocates and Palestinian
journalists as coercive psychological pressure imposed on a population already
under bombardment and facing starvation.
