What message does the recognition of Palestine as a state send about the killing of Jews?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharply denounced Western countries on Friday for embracing Palestinian statehood, accusing them of sending the message that "murdering Jews pays off."

Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, the Israeli leader pushed back in his harshest terms yet against a flurry of diplomatic moves by leading U.S. allies that deepened Israel’s international isolation over its conduct of a nearly two-year-old war against Hamas militants in Gaza.

"This week, the leaders of France, Britain, Australia, Canada and other countries unconditionally recognized a Palestinian state," he said. "They did so after the horrors committed by Hamas on October 7 -- horrors praised on that day by nearly 90% of the Palestinian population."

Calling it a "mark of shame," Netanyahu said: "You know what message the leaders who recognize the Palestinian state this week sent to the Palestinians? It's a very clear message: murdering Jews pays off."

With more countries joining the list of those endorsing Palestinian independence, the most right-wing government in Israeli history has made its strongest declaration in years that there will be no Palestinian state as it pushes on with its fight against Hamas following the militants' October 7, 2023, rampage in Israel. Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military response has killed more than 65,000 people in Gaza, according to local health officials, and left much of the territory in ruins.

SCORES OF DELEGATES WALK OUT AHEAD OF SPEECH

Scores of delegates exited the hall as Netanyahu took the stage while some attendees in the balcony gave him a standing ovation. At the same time, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters blocked traffic near Times Square in New York.

"Over time, many world leaders buckled. They buckled under the pressure of a biased media, radical Islamist constituencies and antisemitic mobs. There's a familiar saying, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Well, for many countries here, when the going got tough, you caved," Netanyahu said.

"Behind closed doors, many of the leaders who publicly condemn us privately thank us. They tell me how much they value Israel's superb intelligence services that have prevented, time and again, terrorist attacks in their capitals."

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said in a statement that Netanyahu's speech was "filled with lies and blatant contradictions" and condemned it as a "desperate attempt to justify the war crimes and acts of genocide."

Frustration over Israel’s military siege and U.S. President Donald Trump’s unwillingness to rein Netanyahu in has spilled into the open at the annual New York gathering where, in a dramatic shift, Australia, Britain, Canada and France and several other nations embraced a Palestinian state.

They said such action was needed to preserve the prospect for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and help bring the war to a close.

Netanyahu followed to the rostrum Arab and Muslim leaders who, one after another, strongly condemned Israel's military assault in Gaza.

Addressing the U.N. shortly after Netanyahu, Prime Minister Micheal Martin of Ireland, which recognized Palestine last year, called Israel's actions in Gaza "an abandonment of all norms, all international rules and law.”

The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in the Gaza war. Israel rejects the court's jurisdiction and denies committing war crimes. Netanyahu rebutted on Friday what he called "the false charge of genocide."

Item 1 of 6 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at U.N. headquarters in New York City. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

[1/6]Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at U.N. headquarters in New York City. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Hamas has offered to release all remaining hostages – only about 20 of whom are said to be alive out of a total of 48 -- in exchange for Israel agreeing to end the war and withdrawing from Gaza.

NETANYAHU ADDRESSES HOSTAGES FROM ROSTRUM

"Much of the world no longer remembers October 7. But we remember," Netanyahu said. Speaking in Hebrew, the Israeli leader directed his remarks to the hostages still held in Gaza: "We've not forgotten you -- not even for a second."

Netanyahu said he had loudspeakers placed at the Israeli side of the Gaza border to broadcast the address into the Palestinian enclave in hopes that hostages would hear his vow that his government will not rest until they are free.

On Friday, Trump told reporters for the second straight day that a deal to end the war and bring the remaining hostages home was close - though he offered no explanation for his optimism about overcoming months of impasse in negotiations.

The right-wing Israeli leader, who spoke by phone to Trump on Thursday and will visit the White House on Monday, is under mounting pressure from the hostages’ families and, according to public opinion polls, a war-weary Israeli public.

Netanyahu has insisted that the fight must go on until Hamas is completely dismantled. He is wary at the same time of losing the backing of far-right members in his fragile governing coalition if he softens his approach.

Netanyahu has retained the staunch support of the U.S., Israel's most important ally and main arms supplier. Trump told the U.N. on Tuesday that moves to recognize a Palestinian state risked rewarding Hamas for “horrible atrocities” and could encourage continued conflict.

Still, no matter how many countries recognize Palestine, full U.N. membership would require approval by the Security Council, where the United States has a veto.

Speaking by video after the U.S. denied him a visa, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday condemned Israel's actions in Gaza as "a war of genocide." He thanked countries that recognized Palestinian statehood, pledged that his Palestinian Authority would be ready to govern post-war Gaza and called for Hamas to be disarmed and have no role.

Some of Netanyahu’s hardline ministers have said the government should respond to growing recognition of Palestinian statehood by formally extending Israeli sovereignty over all or parts of the occupied West Bank to snuff out hopes for Palestinian independence.

On Thursday, however, Trump said he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, which the Palestinians want for their state, along with Gaza and East Jerusalem. “It's not going to happen," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. That followed his discussions on the U.N. sidelines this week in which multiple Arab leaders expressed alarm over the issue.

Trump’s pronouncement could create tensions when he meets Netanyahu - their fourth time face-to-face since the president returned to office in January – in what most analysts had expected to be a diplomatic love fest.

Analysts say Israeli annexation of the West Bank could unravel the Abraham Accords, a landmark agreement brokered by Trump’s first administration in which several Arab countries forged diplomatic ties with Israel. Trump considers the pact a signature foreign policy achievement of his first term.

In his speech, Netanyahu made no mention of the West Bank issue but went out of his way to praise Trump's self-described crackdown on what he sees as antisemitism in the U.S., and urged other countries to follow his example.

The Trump administration has withheld billions of dollars in funding from major universities it accuses of failing to protect Jewish students from pro-Palestinian protesters.

Israel is committing genocide in Gaza:UN

 Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a two-year United Nations investigation has found.

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had “flagrantly disregarded” international law and “orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now”.

This marks the first time a UN body has reached such a conclusion, and is “the strongest and most authoritative UN finding to date”, its authors have said.

In the wake of the report, Keir Starmer is now facing calls to “do all he can” to make Donald Trump act over Gaza when the President arrives in the UK later.

The Israeli foreign ministry dismissed the publication as an “antisemitic ... distorted and false report”, adding that Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, which sparked this conflict, was itself “attempted genocide”.

In its 72-page report, the UN Commission found that since October 2023 Israel has committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The commission also concluded that Israeli president Isaac Herzog, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have incited the commission of genocide.

It warned that UN member states could face legal consequences if they fail to act.

Starving Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, wait to receive food (AFP/Getty)

“It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention,” said Navi Pillay, the chair of the commission and a South African jurist who served as the UN high commissioner for human rights until 2014.

“The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons, who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza,” Pillay added.

“The commission finds that the Israeli authorities had no intention to change their course of action. On the contrary, Israeli authorities have persisted and continued with their genocidal campaign in Gaza for almost two years.”

She urged Israel to end the genocide in Gaza and comply fully with the orders for provisional measures of the International Court of Justice and for UN members state to also act.

”The ongoing genocide is a moral outright and legal emergency member states must act now,” she said at a press conference after the release of the investigation. “There is no need to wait for the ICJ to declare it a genocide, all states are obligated to use whatever means are in its power to prevent the commission of genocide”

Palestinian children go through rubbish as they look for plastic to burn in Gaza City (AP)

The Commission said its findings are based on some 16,000 pieces of evidential material pointing to systematic and unprecedented killings, the destruction of homes and cultural sites, deliberate starvation, denial and destruction of the healthcare system, sexual and gender-based violence, and the direct targeting of children.

It comes on the heels of a report published by the largest professional organisation of scholars studying genocide, which also concluded that Israel is committing genocide. Several international, Palestinian and Israeli organisations, including Amnesty International, have published similar findings.

In response to Tuesday’s report, the Israeli foreign ministry called for the commission to be abolished, accused the authors of anti-semitism and claimed the report relied on Hamas falsehoods, “laundered and repeated by others”.

Chris Sidoti, an Australian human lawyer who is also in the Commission sharply dismissed the criticisms at a press conference on Tuesday saying “the Israeli responses are becoming so boring” that it is almost as if “they are producing the responses by Chat GPT”.

In August, Mr Netanyahu rejected the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. At a meeting with Israeli reporters, he was reported as saying: “If we had wanted to commit genocide, it would have taken exactly one afternoon.”

Genocide was codified in a 1948 convention drawn up after the horrors of the Holocaust. It defines genocide as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Displaced Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza on foot and in vehicles on Monday (AP)

It outlines five genocidal acts as: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent births and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The UN Commission’s report concludes that since October 2023, Israel has committed four of the five.

They cite the massive bombardment of Gaza that has killed over 64,000 people according to Palestinian health authorities, the forced displacement of most of the two million-strong population, the destruction of the healthcare system, as well as the blocking of essential aid, food, water, and electricity that has led to famine.

The aftermath of an Israeli air raid in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, in February (AP)

The commission also refers to the “use of starvation as a weapon”, along with torture, rape and sexual assault of Palestinian detainees, and environmental destruction.

The report is the first time a UN body addresses the issue of intention to prevent births which is part of the Genocide Convention, citing the December 2023 bombing of the Al Basma IVF Centre, Gaza’s largest fertility clinic. The attack reportedly destroyed 4,000 embryos, as well as 1,000 sperm samples and unfertilised eggs.

Many western countries, including the UK – an arms supplier to Israel – have said that only a court can rule on whether genocide has been committed. A case against Israel is currently before the UN’s highest court, the International Court of Justice.

David Lammy, now deputy prime minister, set this out the UK government’s position in a 1 September letter to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, where he stated that the government “has carefully considered the risk of genocide, including when permitting exports to the F-35 [fighter jet] global programme”.

He acknowledged that the high civilian casualties, particularly among women and children, and the extensive destruction in Gaza are “utterly appalling”, and said Israel must do much more to prevent and alleviate the suffering caused by the conflict. However, he stopped short of declaring genocide.

“As per the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide occurs only where there is specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

David Lammy has called the high civilian casualties ‘utterly appalling’, but has stopped short of declaring genocide (PA Wire)

“The government has not concluded that Israel is acting with that intent,” he wrote, adding that the UK is waiting for the findings from the ICJ.

The Commission’s chair Pillay said at the Tuesday press conference waiting for the ICJ to rule - which could take as long as a decade - was too late.

“The Genocide Convention imposes an obligation on states to prevent and prevent genocide. How will they do that if we all sit and wait for some court - if ever - to determine genocide has occurred?” she added.

The Independent also contacted the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to ask whether the new UN Commission report might change the UK’s position, but has yet to receive a response.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: "The horrors in Gaza must stop. And when the one man with the power to make it stop – Donald Trump – arrives in the UK today, Keir Starmer must do all he can to make the President act."

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell told the Independent: “In the light of this report what more evidence does the government need to introduce comprehensive sanctions on Israel, end all arms sales and expel the Israeli ambassador the mouthpiece of the regime committing these war crimes.”

The UN body urges Israel to end the commission of genocide and implement a complete permanent ceasefire in Gaza, as well as allowing unfettered access of aid to Gaza.

It urged foreign states to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent the commission of genocide in Gaza, and to cease the transfer of arms to Israel.