John Haltiwanger & Rishi Iyengar
Foreign Policy / September 26, 2025 (Situation Report)
The Israeli prime minister was met with protests both inside and outside of U.N. headquarters.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kicked off the fifth day of UNGA’s high-level week with an incendiary speech in which he denounced Israel’s critics and excoriated the countries that have recognized Palestinian statehood in recent days. “Your disgraceful decision will encourage terrorism against Jews and against innocent people everywhere,” he said. “It will be a mark of shame on all of you.”
“Giving the Palestinians a state one mile from Jerusalem after Oct. 7 is like giving al Qaeda a state one mile from New York City after Sept. 11,” Netanyahu added.
The Israeli leader’s speech—and presence at UNGA more generally—was met with protests both inside the assembly hall and outside of United Nations headquarters. When Netanyahu walked up to the podium to speak, dozens of delegates stood up and walked out. By the time he began speaking, he was doing so to a largely empty hall (though the viewing gallery in the balcony was filled with several supporters who enthusiastically cheered and applauded multiple times during his speech).
During his address, Netanyahu said that “Israel must finish the job” in Gaza, defending the controversial Israeli operation in Gaza City that has forced an estimated half a million people to flee.
Netanyahu also used his address as an opportunity to portray himself as dedicated to bringing home the hostages still held in Gaza. The Israeli leader announced that he’d surrounded Gaza with “massive loudspeakers” broadcasting his speech “in the hope that our dear hostages will hear my message.”
“We have not forgotten you, not even for a second. The people of Israel are with you. We will not falter, and we will not rest until we bring all of you home,” Netanyahu said in words directed at the hostages. He also called on Hamas to lay down its arms and “let my people go.”
But his message was not well received by some of the hostages’ family members, who have accused Netanyahu of endangering their loved ones and standing in the way of cease-fire agreements that could bring them home.
Ruby Chen—the father of hostage Itay Chen, an American Israeli soldier with the Israel Defense Forces who is believed to have been killed on Oct. 7, 2023—told SitRep that he was in the hall for Netanyahu’s address but “left in protest after he [Netanyahu] did not find a way to mention my son.”
There are 48 hostages remaining in captivity in Gaza, but during his speech, Netanyahu only mentioned the names of the 20 hostages believed to be alive. Family members of deceased hostages have emphasized that they want to see the remains of their loved ones returned to help provide closure.
“It was a speech about yesterday, not a speech about tomorrow,” Chen said, adding that he found it “disturbing” to see so many delegates leave in protest at the beginning—which he said was a sign of the damage that Netanyahu has done to Israel’s reputation and standing within the international community.
Hostage families also led protests aimed at Netanyahu in New York City on Friday. In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum excoriated Netanyahu for deciding “time and again to torpedo, thwart and bomb the chances of returning them home.”
Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, was among a group of demonstrators gathered at the U.N. security perimeter and holding up “bring them home” signs. Lander told SitRep that he was there because “Netanyahu is responsible for the ongoing killing and starvation of kids in Gaza and responsible for ongoing captivity of Israeli hostages, and we want the war to end, we want both the Israeli hostages and Palestinians to be able to go home—and he is an obstacle to that every single day.”
The deep division within the United Nations over Gaza was highlighted by the leader who took the stage immediately after Netanyahu: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“Israel’s genocidal onslaught has unleashed unspeakable terror upon women and children in a manner we have not witnessed in the annals of history,” Sharif said in his remarks. “Palestine can no longer remain under Israeli shackles. It must be liberated.”
John Haltiwanger, a staff writer at Foreign Policy; Rishi Iyengar, a staff writer at Foreign Policy
