New York — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used his rostrum at the United Nations General Assembly to declare that Israel “must finish the job” in Gaza, hardening his stance as a coordinated diplomatic walkout left rows of empty seats and protesters filled Midtown streets. The address, captured across the wires from the floor of the hall and the streets outside, signaled a leader prepared to absorb isolation rather than shift strategy on a war now in its second year. Reuters noted that the UN address set the day’s scene while New York demonstrations pressed against police cordons.
The speech’s central proposition was blunt. Netanyahu insisted that the campaign in Gaza would continue until Hamas was dismantled beyond recovery, a vow he framed as existential necessity for Israel and a warning to governments that have moved to formally recognize a Palestinian state. He castigated those recognitions as capitulation that would echo far beyond the region. His defenders heard resolve. Much of the room heard defiance without a political plan attached, even as several European capitals advanced recognition in recent days.
The optics were not incidental. The walkout, coordinated among Arab and Muslim states and joined by a swath of European and Global South delegations, underscored the widening diplomatic gap around Israel’s prosecution of the war. Outside the complex, demonstrators rallied through the evening, denouncing the bombardment and blockade that have pulverized Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. The visual of empty seats and streets filled with signs mirrored Israel’s political isolation at the very institution that once provided its most reliable diplomatic shield.
Netanyahu built his narrative around two familiar pillars. First, that the October 2023 massacres proved the cost of complacency and mandate the destruction of Hamas as a governing and military force. Second, that a broad arc of enemies—Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran—has forced Israel into a “seven-front” conflict without precedent. He displayed a map he titled “The Curse” to dramatize the point, a piece of political theater aimed at an audience far larger than the delegates in the room.
Those set pieces collided with a humanitarian record that is no longer contested by major relief agencies. Famine confirmed in Gaza has become the starkest marker of a siege that has crushed daily life, and technical monitors have now codified the severity through the IPC classification process. That sits alongside field reporting of systematic displacement, repeated communications blackouts, and the attrition of hospitals, clinics and water systems that once anchored civic order.
On the hostage question, Netanyahu calibrated his message for home. Addressing the captives and their families, he promised that the state had not forgotten them and would not rest until every person was returned. The line will land in Israel against months of anger from relatives who argue that the government has prioritized maximal war aims over a pragmatic deal. Hostage families lead protests most weekends in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, a rebuke that the prime minister cannot easily dismiss even as he accuses opponents of emboldening Hamas. As of this week, 48 hostages remain in Gaza, a number that has become the moral baseline of every negotiation.
To Gaza’s fighters and political cadre, the UN podium message was an ultimatum. Netanyahu said his words were pushed into the strip on loudspeakers and to phones, urging militants to lay down arms and release every remaining captive. He paired that with a familiar allegation that Hamas steals aid and starves civilians as strategy. That charge has faced sustained scrutiny: a USAID analysis found no evidence of systematic theft of US-funded assistance by Hamas, complicating talking points used to justify parallel distribution schemes and tighter controls. In the same arena of technology and war, even major companies are recalibrating exposure, with Microsoft limiting Israeli military AI access after months of scrutiny.
Recognition politics will echo well beyond New York. In recent days, close US partners moved to recognize Palestinian statehood; the shift includes Europe’s heavyweights and a cluster of Anglosphere allies. Our desk’s explainer on how Western allies recognize Palestine maps the timing and motives. France’s decision, detailed here in France recognizes Palestine, is a bellwether that would have been unthinkable months into the war but now reads as a hedge against permanent conflict. Netanyahu called these moves “insane,” the latest sign of a widening gulf with partners who once reflexively backed Israel at the UN.
Washington’s posture is shifting in ways that matter to Israeli politics. The United States remains Israel’s primary arms supplier and diplomatic backstop, yet President Donald Trump has signaled he will not support unilateral West Bank annexation. The policy line, reported on Friday in Washington, has already rattled the far-right flank of Netanyahu’s coalition. Our coverage of that declaration, Trump rejects West Bank annexation, sits alongside a US media readout that framed it as a binding red line. The contrast with Jerusalem’s wartime rhetoric could not be sharper.
Within Israel’s political arena, the UN appearance did little to consolidate the center. Opposition leaders derided the address as gimmick rather than strategy, a reprise of criticisms that have grown sharper as the war grinds on without a clear day-after plan. Security veterans warn that cycling through incursions, withdrawals and re-incursions without installing a credible civil authority in Gaza leaves Israel stuck in a tactical loop that cannot deliver strategic security. The coalition arithmetic makes a genuine pivot difficult, softening the line risks collapse while staying the course invites sanctions talk in Europe.
On the ground, the campaign has returned to its bleak routine. Evacuation orders push families from shattered blocks into makeshift encampments that lack clean water and medical care. Artillery and airstrikes resume in neighborhoods already flattened in earlier waves, forcing those who fled to flee again. Situational updates by UN coordinators, including the latest OCHA humanitarian update, describe long windows when access to the north collapses altogether and brief corridors that open and close too unpredictably to function as lifelines. In Gaza City and across the central districts, our report on Gaza City under relentless assault catalogs the cycle now familiar to civilians.
Netanyahu’s legal exposure traveled with him to New York. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Gaza, a constraint that already influences where and how the Israeli leader moves beyond friendly jurisdictions. Our explainer on the ICC warrant against Netanyahu lays out the implications, and a separate dispatch on how he detours to dodge ICC details the travel calculus that now shadows every itinerary.
The regional frame, which the prime minister emphasizes at every turn, remains volatile. In the north, Hezbollah calibrates its fire to avoid full-scale war while keeping Israel’s border towns emptied and anxious. In the Red Sea, the Houthis keep insurers nervous and militaries busy; our report on how Houthis hit an Israeli-linked tanker explains why shipping lanes now figure in every Gaza briefing. Across Syria and Iraq, militia activity tests Israel’s and the United States’ lines without crossing them too often. Each of those fronts is a lever. Each remains more combustible so long as Gaza is a rallying point rather than a reconstruction site.
At the UN, where words are currency, Netanyahu offered certainty without compromise. He carried props to force a visceral reckoning, QR codes that linked to October 7 footage and a map that cast enemies as a belt constricting Israel, but avoided the questions that most of the world now asks. Who governs Gaza when the guns stop. Who polices the crossings. Who pays to rebuild and under what security guarantees. None of those answers can be reverse-engineered from a slogan about finishing the job.
There was a hint of what the speech avoided. No pathway was offered for Palestinian political renewal or a credible international custodianship that could unlock ports, power and a functioning health sector. Absent that, Israel remains mobilized in perpetuity while Gaza remains unlivable. The result is not deterrence but a permanent mobilization that corrodes Israel’s economy and Gaza’s society alike. The countries that walked out signaled that patience for righteous fury is nearing its end. So, increasingly, do many Israelis who want their children home and their borders quiet rather than a forever war dressed as policy. For the factual baseline of the day and the prime minister’s framing at the podium, Al Jazeera’s contemporaneous reported, Netanyahu tells UN that Israel must finish the job in Gaza, which includes quotes used by outlets across the wire.
