The first day of the high-level week at the UN General Assembly was filled with criticism and harsh attacks on Israel. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in his opening address of "the specter of ethnic cleansing" in Judea and Samaria, Jordan's King Abdullah II accused Israel of a "war crime" and said it had become a "regional threat," while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Gaza "the most inhumane and shameful concentration camp of our time." Between those speeches, US President Donald Trump took the podium, focusing his remarks on Iran and the achievement he said he had secured in Gaza.
Guterres, delivering his final General Assembly address before his term ends in late December, devoted part of his speech to Israel. "Nearly three years have passed since the abhorrent Hamas terror attacks of Oct. 7," he said. "But what followed was an onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, with a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed in all my years as secretary-general."
He referred to the provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice in the genocide case against Israel and added that "all parties must comply with international law and the decisions of the court." On Judea and Samaria, Guterres said that "violence, displacement and settlement expansion by Israel are bulldozing the path to peace and raising the specter of ethnic cleansing. We cannot allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes."
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who opened the General Debate before Trump, also accused Israel. "Generations of Palestinians will carry the pain and trauma left by the genocide committed by the Netanyahu government against women and children in Gaza," he said, while adding that "Israeli civilians paid the price for the radicalism and intolerance of Hamas' terrorist acts."
"The persecution of the International Criminal Court and its members encourages these crimes to go unpunished," Lula said. On Judea and Samaria, he said that "illegal settlements are making the two-state solution increasingly unviable."
Later, he said: "Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin were statesmen. They challenged the past to imagine a future of peace. They were defeated by hatred."
The harshest speech against Israel came from the Turkish president. "In Gaza alone, over the past three years, we have lost 74,000 of our brothers and sisters, most of them women and children," Erdogan said. "We lost them to what we regard as Israel's acts of state terrorism."
"Gaza is not only the world's largest graveyard for children, it is also the place with the world's highest rate of amputations among children," he added, calling the territory "the most inhumane and shameful concentration camp of our time. We are facing a murderous mentality that can never be satisfied."
Erdogan also praised Trump. "The ceasefire was achieved thanks to President Trump's efforts and the contributions of countries including my own, Türkiye," he said.
However, Erdogan claimed that "even after the ceasefire, the number of Gaza residents killed has exceeded 1,500, and although the Palestinian resistance movement agreed to move to the second phase of the peace plan, the Israeli government refuses to end the occupation." He added that Judea and Samaria were experiencing "the gravest period of what we regard as settler violence and terrorism," and called for "greater pressure on Israel" and for Gaza's reconstruction to begin.
Erdogan also devoted part of his speech to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' absence from the hall. "The State of Palestine is officially recognized by the overwhelming majority of the member states here, but President Mahmoud Abbas has been unable to attend these sessions for two consecutive years," he said. "This injustice against our Palestinian brothers and sisters deeply wounds the conscience of humanity."
"We will continue to be the voice of a free and sovereign State of Palestine," Erdogan said. He called on countries that have not yet recognized it to reconsider their position and declared that "attempts to suffocate the State of Palestine will fail."
Members of the Israeli delegation walked out of the hall midway through his speech.
Abdullah: 'Forced displacement'
Jordan's King Abdullah II accused Israel of war crimes. "In Gaza, the evidence is overwhelming," he said, claiming that "during the first 300 days of the so-called ceasefire, at least 300 Palestinian children were killed," and that Jordanian field hospitals had been targeted. President Trump has pushed with all his strength for peace and for a way to end this war," Abdullah said. "But this Israeli government continues to move the goalposts, continues its attacks and destruction of civilian infrastructure, refuses to withdraw and is squeezing the Palestinians into less than one-third of Gaza."
Most of his remarks focused on Judea and Samaria. "While the world has been focused on Gaza, something particularly dangerous is happening" there, he said, adding that "what was once a creeping process has exploded into something far more aggressive."
"Demolishing Palestinian homes in order to expand illegal settlements is not law enforcement. It is forcible transfer," he said. "The seizure of occupied land is not land registration. It is de facto annexation."
Abdullah went further, saying: "What is happening in the West Bank is not a series of isolated acts. These are components of a single policy designed to force an entire population off its land. And there is a name for that: forced displacement. And it is a war crime."
Another portion of his address focused on the regional arena and carried a warning. "No one in this hall should assume that its ambitions stop at Palestine," Abdullah said of Israel. "The expansionist appetite of this Israeli government is now a regional threat, and today Syria is the warning the international community is choosing not to see." He described "repeated incursions, creeping territorial expansion and new facts on the ground, including around vital water resources."
"For Jordan, there is no ambiguity," he said. "Any threat to our northern border or our water security is a threat to our national security. Jordan will not look away."
Tuesday's attacks were a prelude to the days ahead. On Thursday morning, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to address the General Assembly by video after the US denied him a visa for the second consecutive year. That afternoon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to take the podium.
Netanyahu is expected to make a brief trip to New York lasting less than 24 hours, without a meeting with Trump. Last year, numerous delegates staged a coordinated walkout as Netanyahu began speaking. Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon has estimated that another "show" could take place this time as well.
