Defiant Netanyahu brands Gaza genocide claims the ‘biggest lie of the century’ and attacks ‘moral cowards’ as scores of delegates walk out during fiery UN speech
Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a defiant speech at the UN General Assembly defending Israel’s military action against Iran and rejecting allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. His address was disrupted when scores of delegates walked out, while others jeered and booed, highlighting Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation over the Gaza war.
Netanyahu called the genocide allegations “the biggest lie of the century” and claimed Israel was also protecting countries whose representatives had left. He criticised Britain and France over their colonial histories, condemned violence by Israeli youths in the occupied West Bank, and said many Jews felt unsafe in New York. The conflict began after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, which killed about 1,200 people and involved 251 hostages; Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 73,922 Palestinians have since been killed.
- Netanyahu rejected genocide allegations as false.
- Delegates walked out during his UN speech.
- Gaza’s reported Palestinian death toll exceeds 73,000.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Israel has a fundamental right to defend itself against the October 7 attack that killed over a thousand civilians and resulted in hostages being taken, and military operations directed at dismantling the threat posed by Hamas are not inherently genocidal merely because they cause civilian casualties, which occur in all conflicts. The characterisation of Israel's actions as genocide represents a political weaponisation of a specific legal term that requires proof of intent to destroy a group as such, not simply the existence of large casualty numbers; defenders argue that proportionality in warfare involves difficult trade-offs, that civilian casualties are tragic but inevitable when an adversary operates from civilian areas, and that Israel's stated purpose is to eliminate a terrorist threat rather than to destroy Palestinians as a people.
The case against
The scale of destruction in Gaza—with casualty figures vastly exceeding those from the precipitating attack, widespread forced displacement, systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, and severe restrictions on humanitarian aid—raises credible questions about whether the response has become disproportionate to any legitimate security objective. International legal experts have documented patterns and rhetoric consistent with serious violations of international humanitarian law, and the disparity in power and casualties, combined with constraints that restrict civilian survival and dignity, suggests an approach that may treat Palestinian lives as having substantially less value; whether or not genocide is legally established, the scale and nature of harm warrants sustained moral scrutiny and independent investigation rather than dismissal.