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    • Netanyahu promises in a UN speech to continue Hezbollah’s attacks
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    Netanyahu promises in a UN speech to continue Hezbollah’s attacks

    Idris Bevan Posted on

    As Netanyahu began speaking, some leaders walked out in protest.

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    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations on Friday that his country would not back down in the fight against Hezbollah, saying he would not rest until all hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 were returned from the Gaza Strip.

    In a fiery and bombastic address to the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu said the key to this was to completely dismantle the militant group in the enclave and its allies such as Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    Netanyahu also had a direct message to what he called the “tyrants of Tehran.”

    “If you beat us, we will beat you,” he said.

    The speech comes as the international community has called on Netanyahu to consider a U.S.-backed ceasefire plan for Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel has launched attacks against Hezbollah commanders. Israel has indicated in recent days that it is close to authorizing a ground strike to eradicate Hezbollah tunnels and rocket launch sites in Lebanon.

    The Pentagon announced Monday that it would increase its forces in the Middle East as tensions rise between Israel and Hezbollah.

    Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel since October 7 last year, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. Hezbollah has claimed it is acting in solidarity with Hamas. Its rocket fire has forced up to 60,000 Israelis living near the border with Lebanon to flee south.

    Israel and Hezbollah have delivered the highest intensity airstrikes and rocket fire over the past week since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on October 7 sent tensions soaring in the Middle East.

    More than 800 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon since Monday.

    But Netanyahu did not mention the Lebanon ceasefire proposal in his address on Friday, which called for a cessation of fighting for 21 days and was supported by the United States, the European Union and nine other nations.

    Instead, he railed against Iran, calling its long-simmering feud with Israel a “battle between good and evil.” And he criticized critics of the Gaza war, saying the Israel Defense Forces had now killed or captured “more than half” of the militant group’s fighters in the year since Hamas launched its attacks.

    “We will not stop,” Netanyahu said. “We win.”

    As Netanyahu began speaking, some leaders walked out in protest.

    Ahead of Netanyahu’s address, thousands of protesters marched to the UN headquarters and staged demonstrations around New York. According to media reports, the police arrested several people.

    Netanyahu regularly uses his speeches abroad to highlight Iran, which Israel and many of its Western allies view as the country causing most instability in the Middle East. In addition to funding Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran supplies weapons and funding to its proxies—militant groups like the Houthis, with which it is allied—in Yemen and Iraq.

    Netanyahu has repeatedly said that repatriating Israeli hostages is one of his main priorities.

    Some of his critics don’t believe him.

    Tensions in the Middle East: Israel fires the first Hezbollah rocket aimed at Tel Aviv as the group says it targeted a spy agency

    “Anger and Frustration”

    Nimrod Novik, a former foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and now a member of the Israel Policy Forum, said that as he watched Netanyahu’s speech, he envisioned the “anger and frustration” of the hostages’ families, who had begged Netanyahu to deal with it Hamas to agree on a ceasefire and hostage-taking agreement.

    The Israeli leader did not address this prospect.

    Novik said he heard a prime minister intent on “continuing the war in the south, expanding the war in the north and risking it spilling over into the West Bank and potentially leading to a conflagration in the region.”

    He said he expected senior White House officials would likely be “scratching their brains” over what the meaning of the speech was and what Netanyahu would do next.

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    Idris Bevan
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