Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz has congratulated Prime Minister Netanyahu on his speech at the UN General Assembly saying he “presented the simple truth.”
“The Iranian regime and its terror proxies pose a danger to all nations of the free world, which must choose between a future of blessing and peace with the region or a future of curse and war against terror,” Katz said in a post on X.
He added that the State of Israel will continue to fight all its enemies until every hostage is returned, Hamas is destroyed, and the citizens of the north can return to their homes.
Also in his speech at the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu accused UN of anti-Semitism.
The Israeli leader said that singling out his country is “a moral stain on the United Nations”, making the institution “a swamp of anti-Semitism.”
“I say to you, until Israel – until the Jewish state – is treated like other nations, until this anti-Semitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce.”
Benjamin Netanyahu
He also spoke about the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, a UN body, against him and Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, linking the measure to anti-Semitism.
While Netanyahu’s speech centred around Israel’s right to defend itself, Political Analyst Marwan Bishara said the UNGA resolution, backed by an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), made it clear that “Palestinians have the right to resist their occupiers.”
“Israel has no right to defend its occupation and dispossession of a majority of Palestinians that continue to live in refugee camps for eight decades,” Bishara said. “Israel claims to be defending itself when in fact it is defending its racism and its system of apartheid.”
The analyst added that the US administration gave Israel the green light to use self-defence as a rationale by drawing a parallel between Hamas’s October 7 attack and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It then went on to shield it, to arm it, to finance it and to defend it at the United Nations and that’s why we need to remember that Netanyahu has the arrogance to come to the UN and lecture the world, because the US supports him, a war criminal.”
Israel Carries Precise Strike On Hezbollah’s Central Headquarters
Meanwhile, Israeli military had carried out a “precise strike” on Hezbollah’s central headquarters in Beirut.
In a statement, Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that the Hezbollah central command centre was embedded deep within civilian areas in the heart of Dahieh, in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs.
According to Hagari, the Israeli military targeted the Hezbollah headquarters, which was built “under residential buildings in Beirut in order to use them as human shields.”
He added that the headquarters “served as the epicentre of Hezbollah’s terror.”
The airstrikes rocked Beirut, with the series of explosions heard across the city and multiple large plumes of smoke billowing from the strike sites. The smoke could be seen from the city of Batroun, an hour’s drive north of the capital city.
According to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV, four buildings were destroyed by the airstrikes.
Earlier on Friday, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Imran Riza, warned that the country is facing bloodshed not seen in decades, and that the crisis could deteriorate even further.
“The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic,” said humanitarian coordinator Imran Riza.
The Humanitarian Coordinator added, “We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning.”
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