UNITED NATIONS: Facing international isolation, accusations of war crimes and growing pressure to end a conflict he has continued to escalate, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets his chance to push back Friday on the international community’s biggest platform.
Netanyahu’s annual speech to the UN General Assembly is always closely watched, often protested, reliably emphatic and sometimes a venue for dramatic allegations. But this time, the stakes are higher than ever for the Israeli leader.
In recent days, Australia, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and others announced their recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
The European Union is considering tariffs and sanctions on Israel. The assembly this month passed a nonbinding resolution urging Israel to commit to an independent Palestinian nation, which Netanyahu has said is a non-starter.
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant accusing Netanyahu of crimes against humanity, which he denies. And the UN’s highest court is weighing South Africa’s allegation that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, which it vehemently refutes.
Against that backdrop, Netanyahu sounded resolute Thursday as he boarded a plane in Israel to head for the UN’s annual meeting of top-level leaders in New York.
“I will tell our truth,” Netanyahu said. “I will condemn those leaders who, instead of condemning the murderers, rapists and burners of children, want to give them a state in the heart of Israel.”
Opposition to Netanyahu’s approach is growing
At a special session of the assembly this week, nation after nation expressed horror at the 2023 attack by Hamas militants that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, saw 251 taken hostage and triggered the war. Many of the representatives went on to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and influx of aid.
Israel’s sweeping offensive has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians in Gaza and displaced 90 percent of its population, with an increasing number now starving.
While more than 150 countries now recognize a Palestinian state, the United States has not, providing Israel with vociferous support. But President Donald Trump pointedly signaled Thursday there are limits, telling reporters in Washington that he wouldn’t let Israel annex the occupied West Bank.
Israel hasn’t announced such a move, but several leading members in Netanyahu’s government have advocated doing so. And officials recently approved a controversial settlement project that would effectively cut the West Bank in two, a move that critics say could doom chances for a Palestinian state. Trump and Netanyahu are scheduled to meet during his visit.
Palestinians had their UN say the day before
Netanyahu was preceded Thursday by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the General Assembly via video, since the US denied him a visa. He welcomed the announcements of recognition but said the world needs to do more to make statehood happen.
“The time has come for the international community to do right by the Palestinian people” and help them realize “their legitimate rights to be rid of the occupation and to not remain a hostage to the temperament of Israeli politics,” he said.
Abbas leads the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which administers portions of the West Bank. Hamas won legislative elections in Gaza in 2006 before seizing control from Abbas’ forces the following year.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war, then withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians want all three territories to form their envisioned state, part of a “two-state solution” that the international community has embraced for decades.
Netanyahu opposes it robustly, maintaining that creating a Palestinian state would reward Hamas.
“This will not happen,” he said at the airport Thursday.
Israel’s Netanyahu to address UN as pressure mounts over Gaza war
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Israel’s Netanyahu to address UN as pressure mounts over Gaza war
- Netanyahu’s annual speech to the UN General Assembly is always closely watched, often protested, reliably emphatic and sometimes a venue for dramatic allegations, this time, the stakes are higher than ever for the Israeli leader
5 bodies of migrants washed ashore in east of Libya’s capital Tripoli, police officer says
TRIPOLI: At least five bodies of migrants including two women have been washed ashore in َQasr Al-Akhyar, a coastal town in the east of Libya’s capital Tripoli, a police officer told Reuters on Saturday.
Hassan Al-Ghawil, head of investigations at the Qasr Al-Akhyar police station, said that according to people in the area, a child’s body washed ashore and because of the waves’ height the body returned to the sea, and the coast guard was asked to search for it.
Ghawil said the bodies are all dark-skinned people. The bodies were found on Emhamid Al-Sharif shore in the western part of the town by people who reported to the police station.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean since the fall in 2011 of dictator Muammar Qaddafi to a NATO-backed uprising. Factional conflict has split the country into western and eastern factions since 2014.
Qasr Al-Akhyar is a coastal town some 73 kilometers (45 miles) east of Tripoli.
Pictures were posted on the Internet, and also seen by Reuters, showing the bodies of the migrants lying on the shore, where some were still within black inflatable lifebuoys.
“We reported to the Red Crescent to recover the bodies,” said Ghawil. “The bodies we found are still intact and we think there are more bodies to wash ashore.”
Earlier this month, fifty-three migrants, including two babies, were dead or missing after a rubber boat carrying 55 people capsized off the coast of Zuwara town in western Tripoli, the International Organization for Migration said.
Last week, a UN report said migrants in Libya, including young girls, are at risk of being killed, tortured, raped or put into domestic slavery, calling for a moratorium on the return of migrant boats to the country until human rights are ensured.
