‘We are winning,’ Netanyahu tells UN, warning Iran that there’s no place Israel cannot reach – live | Israel

Outside the luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue, a small group of anti-Benjamin Netanyahu protestors gathered across the street. Some waved Israeli flags while others held signs with Netanyahu’s face imprinted with a red handprint.

One protestor, Yehuda Cohen, 55, condemned Netanyahu’s speech at the UN.

“While there is intense war in Israel, he’s dealing with himself…he thinks he’s the great speaker, he will save Israel by speaking, he’s actually destroying Israel. He’s responsible for the events of 7th of October,” Cohen said.

“He must put everything aside, stop the war and go for a hostage deal. I want my son back home. I sent my son to the army so he can protect Israel. On the 7th of October, they were outnumbered, he was neglected and kidnapped… The Israeli government, it’s not that they’re doing nothing for a hostage deal, they’re doing everything to prevent a hostage deal,” Cohen added.

Netanyahu also stressed the need to achieve a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, citing the experience of the Abraham Accords.

“I say to you, what blessing such a peace with Saudi Arabia would bring – it would be a boon to the security and economy of our two countries, it would boost trade and tourism across the region, it would help transform the Middle East into a global juggernaut,” he said.

“Such a peace, I’m sure, would be a true pivot of history: it would usher in a historic reconciliation between the Arab world and Israel, between Islam and Judaism, between Mecca and Jerusalem,” the Israeli leader said.

“One of the best ways to foil Iran’s nefarious designs is to achieve the peace,” he added.

Speaking of Hezbollah, Benjamin Netanyahu said the group has murdered the citizens of many countries and attacked Israel unprovoked.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “We won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes,” he added. “We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another October 7-style massacre,” he said.

“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said at the UN general assembly.

“We are winning,” he declared, showing a map he termed “the curse” of Iran’s influence and another which he described as a blessing.

Netanyahu also called for an end to the “appeasement” of Iran. Everything must be done to ensure Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons, the Israeli leader added.

The UN said on Friday that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its deadliest period in years, with its hospitals overwhelmed by casualties, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic,” said Imran Riza, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon.

“We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning,” Riza told reporters in Geneva via video link from Beirut, reports AFP.

He pointed out that on Monday alone, the death toll was equal to around half of the 1,200 killed during 34 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

“The level of displacement, the level of trauma, the level of panic, has been huge,” he said. At the same time, Riza warned that Lebanon’s “health sector is completely overrun”.

“The events of last week, including the explosions of communication devices, have nearly depleted health supplies,” he said. Riza added: “With the recent escalations and hospitals reaching capacity, the system is struggling with limited resources to meet the growing demands.”

The hospitals in Lebanon “are overwhelmed”, agreed Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO).

She pointed out that the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had caused large numbers of serious injuries, especially to eyes and hands, which require specialised treatment.

A full 777 injured remain in hospitals after those blasts, “and 152 of those are critical cases,” Harris said, according to AFP. “That means they’re not leaving the hospital for quite some time, and so every day of bombing and blasts fills up beds that can’t be unfilled.”

At the same time, she said, 37 health facilities had been closed across Lebanon due to events. Harris stressed that aid agencies had done a lot to prepare for possible mass-casualty events in Lebanon in case the past year of cross-border fire were to escalate.

The WHO had helped “train most of the health workers in most of the hospitals for mass casualty”, she said. But “in our planning scenarios, we didn’t have anything like the numbers that have actually been affected”.

“It was way beyond anything that normal planning, even for a horrific event like this, would have expected”.

Daniel Hurst

Australia has suggested the world should set “a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood” in a sign of increasing frustration about the stalled peace process.

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, will float the idea in a speech to the UN general assembly in New York on Saturday Australian time (Friday US time). Benjamin Netanyahu was also due to address the gathering amid mounting concern about an escalating regional war.

Wong will tell the general assembly that “every country in this room” must abide by the rules of war, and Israel “must comply with the binding orders of the international court of justice”, according to speech remarks distributed to media in advance.

Wong will say the Hamas-led attacks on Israel nearly one year ago “cannot and should not be justified” and the group must release all Israeli hostages.

But she will say 11,000 Palestinian children have been killed and two million people in Gaza face acute food insecurity in the resulting war. “This must end,” Wong will say.

“All lives have equal value.”

One of the most significant parts of Wong’s speech is her offer for Australia to “contribute to new ways to break the cycle of conflict”.

She will say Australia “shares the frustration of the great majority of countries” about a lack of progress, more than 77 years after UN general assembly resolution 181 outlined “a plan for two states side by side”.

You can rerad the full piece here:

Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US based charity, firing on her car in what government officials told her family was a case of mistaken identity, reports Reuters.

The car in which Islam Hejazy, Gaza programme manager at HEAL Palestine, was travelling was intercepted on Thursday in the area of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip. Gunmen riding in three cars sprayed the vehicle with dozens of bullets, according to residents and the woman’s family.

“She was the mother of two small children and a humanitarian with the highest ethics and professionalism,” HEAL Palestine, posted on its Facebook page. “HEAL Palestine is more dedicated than ever to serving Gaza, in her honor. Ceasefire now,” it added.

Reuters reports that her family issued a statement on Friday, saying they were told by government parties at the hospital where her body was taken that she was killed by mistake. Her killers, whose identity was not immediately clear, had failed to identify the vehicle she was driving, they said.

There has been no immediate comment from Hamas, according to Reuters.

“That was a bigger shock … How would an innocent soul be wasted and 90 bullets fired at her car just for mistaken identification?” the family said in a statement published by Palestinian media. Reuters was not able to verify the number of bullets fired.

The incident highlights growing chaos and anarchy in Gaza almost a year into Israel’s military offensive, which has weakened the ability of Hamas-run security services to police the streets, according to the group.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they had targeted Israel’s cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon, reports Reuters.

The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day.

The Houthi’s military spokesperson said their operations will not halt in the coming days until Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop.

“We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon,” Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of its ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza.