The world cannot turn its back on genocide again.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has once again challenged the United NationsHe did so yesterday, Friday, at the assembly of this institution, where he spoke for the second consecutive year. "We have to finish the job," he declared, referring to Gaza. "We want to finish it as soon as possible," he insisted. He argued that Hamas has sworn to repeat the atrocities of October 7 and that, therefore, "it doesn't matter how depleted its forces are." According to Gaza authorities, at least 63,000 Palestinians have died as a result of the Israeli invasion, which has now lasted nearly two years. But Netanyahu, who showed no intention of stopping the massacre—on the contrary—denied the accusations of genocide. "If we wanted to commit genocide, we wouldn't tell them to leave; it's Hamas who's trying to keep them inside," he argued. He said nothing about where they could go or how they could leave.
Before giving his speech, he also ordered trucks with loudspeakers positioned on the Gaza border to broadcast his words throughout the Strip.
Netanyahu was able to say all this at the United Nations headquarters in New York. And he did so with impunity, even though he has an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. But it seems that something is beginning to change at the international level. His official plane, theWings of Zion, to take it to New York he avoided flying over the airspace of France and Spain, according to HaaretzProbably to minimize the possibility of being detained if he had to make an emergency landing. He made a detour of more than 600 kilometers from the usual route. Furthermore, most of the delegations to the UN General Assembly left the room in protest when the Israeli prime minister took the lectern, and many of the leaders who spoke criticized the Gaza massacre.
Donald Trump, for his part, assured reporters shortly before Netanyahu spoke that "there will be peace" in Gaza and that he believes in the possibility of an agreement. On Thursday night, in the Oval Office, he had already said that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, as Israeli officials had announced. This also seems like a change in the line followed so far by the US president. But how reliable are his words, when his international policy, as he is also demonstrating with the Ukrainian conflict, is absolutely volatile? The hope is that Trump will be swept away by international pressure.
The only way to stop the war crimes and crimes against humanity that the Netanyahu government is perpetrating in Gaza is to increase international isolation and pressure, which are already being felt. The world already knows the consequences of turning its back on genocide, of deliberately avoiding seeing what happens so as not to have to confront it. It cannot happen again. Netanyahu is seeking to rid himself of an entire people who were already strangled, because if he really wanted to eliminate Hamas, there wouldn't be more than 63,000 Palestinians dead.