Netanyahu defies calls for a cease-fire at the U.N., as Israel strikes Lebanon

In a fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country is “winning” on multiple fronts and would attack Iran and its proxies anywhere in the Middle East, even as Israeli air force jets were preparing to pound a complex of buildings in central Beirut that Israel says serve as a headquarters for the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Many of the delegates in the U.N. hall stood up and swiftly left in a public snub at the start of his address — in which he called the U.N. a “swamp of antisemitic bile.”

For days, Arab leaders including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had been assailing the behavior of the Israeli military in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.

Abbas told delegates that Israel did not deserve its U.N. membership, given that its government has, in his words, “exploited” the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack in Israel to “launch a comprehensive war of genocide on the Gaza Strip, and committed and continues to commit war crimes recognized by the international community.” Israel has denied committing genocide or other war crimes, arguing that it is fighting to defeat militant groups and defend itself from further attacks.

Netanyahu insisted he traveled to New York after he “heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium.”

But his trip had been planned well in advance, and though his arrival in New York for the annual General Assembly had been slightly delayed due to domestic considerations, he told the audience of dignitaries and world leaders that he had “decided to come here and set the record straight.”

“Israel yearns for peace,” Netanyahu continued during his address Friday. “Israel has made peace and will make peace again.”

Soon after his speech, his office said was returning to Israel early from New York.

But nearly a year into Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the Israeli leader’s behavior during many months of on-again-off-again cease-fire negotiations has not only infuriated his political opponents and a sizable chunk of his own citizens, but has confounded many world leaders too.

Critics have often in recent months said that Netanyahu — whose political savvy has helped him survive repeatedly to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister in history — will agree to show negotiating flexibility during private meetings, before issuing public statements that block progress during peace talks.

Such contradictions have repeatedly occurred during negotiations brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar over a cease-fire in Gaza. And now — according to Israeli media outlets — this form of dissembling obstruction has reoccurred in the recent cease-fire proposal developed by the U.S. and France.

Danny Danon, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, said the government is pushing for certain terms in any deal. “If we can achieve the goals of the war through diplomacy, we prefer that,” he said outside the U.N. Security Council on Friday. “And the goals are to allow the citizens of Israel, 70,000 refugees to move back to their homes. And to push Hezbollah from the southern Lebanon area.”

In the meantime, Israel has continued its military campaign. Danon said Israeli forces carried out a “precise attack on Hezbollah’s central headquarters” in Beirut Friday.

As the Israeli military calls up further reserves close to the northern border and responds to Hezbollah rocket fire with dozens of airstrikes in Lebanon, Netanyahu also remains at the center of a high-profile demand for an arrest warrant against him, issued by the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands.

The Israeli premier met with his Dutch counterpart during one of several meetings in New York this week, and raised the proceedings currently underway at the court. According to Netanyahu’s office, he insisted during the bilateral conversation that the prosecutor’s actions constituted “a political proceeding based on false libels that endanger every democracy defending itself against terrorism.”

Michele Kelemen contributed reporting from the United Nations.