‘The real war criminals are not in Israel’, Netanyahu tells UN General Assembly

United Nations: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticised the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants against him and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, alongside several Hamas leaders.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the real war criminals are not in Israel,” he told the UN General Assembly on Friday.

“They’re in Iran. They’re in Gaza, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Yemen. Those of you who stand with these criminals, those of you who stand with evil against good, with the curse against the blessing, those of you who do so should be ashamed of yourselves.”

The International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the October 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

“Given the anti-semitism at the UN, it should surprise no one that the prosecutor at the ICC, one of the UN’s affiliate organs, is considering issuing arrest warrants against me and Israel’s Defence Minister — the democratically elected leaders of the democratic state of Israel,” Netanyahu said.

“Nobody is above the law,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN.

But “the ICC prosecutors rushed to judgement,” Netanyahu said.

“His refusal to treat Israel with its independent courts, the way other democracies are treated, is hard to explain by anything other than pure anti-semitism,” he added.

Israel has “no choice” but to fight back against Hezbollah, so long as the militant group threatens Israel from its base in Lebanon, Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly.

“As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right, to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely,” the Israeli leader said.

“And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

Around 60,000 Israeli civilians have been forced from their homes by Hezbollah attacks that began on October 8, the day after Hamas’ attack on Israel.

The Israeli military has in recent days rapidly escalated its fight against Hezbollah, killed hundreds in Lebanon and forced hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes in southern Lebanon, according to the government there.

“We will continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met,” Netanyahu added.

The Israeli Prime Minister said his country’s military has killed or captured more than half of Hamas’ 40,000 fighters during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.

The leader also claimed that Israel’s military had destroyed 90 per cent of Hamas’ rocket arsenal and eliminated “key segments” of the militants’ tunnel network over the course of its nearly one-year war against the group.

Netanyahu said Israel was “now focused on mopping up Hamas’s remaining fighting capabilities,” including targeting remaining senior commanders and destroying remaining infrastructure.

Also during his speech, Netanyahu praised Israel’s soldiers for their role in the Israel-Gaza war — which has killed 41,945 people and injured 96,006 in the enclave, according to authorities there — saying they had “fought back with incredible courage and with heroic sacrifice”.

“And I have another message for this Assembly and for the world outside this hall: We are winning!” he said.

Netanyahu offered little detail during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on who might govern Gaza after the war there concludes.

“Israel will reject any role for Hamas in a post-war Gaza,” he said.

“We don’t seek to resettle Gaza, we seek to demilitarise and deradicalise Gaza. Only then can we ensure that this round of fighting will be the last round of fighting.

Israel, he said, was “ready to work with regional and local partners to support a civilian administration in Gaza committed to peaceful coexistence”.

The Israeli Prime Minister brought props to his speech at the UN General Assembly to make his case.

Holding two maps, he said the world much choose between a “blessing” and a “curse”.

At the centre of the choice was Israel’s major regional enemy: Iran.

The blessing, he said, “shows Israel and its Arab partners forming a land bridge connecting Asia and Europe.”

“Now look at this second map,” he said.

“It’s a map of a curse. It’s a map of an arc of terror that Iran has created and imposed from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean.”

“Which of these two maps that I showed you will shape our future? Will it be the blessings of peace and prosperity for Israel, our Arab partners, and the rest of the world? Or will it be the curse in which Iran and its proxies spread carnage and chaos everywhere?”

He added: “There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach — that’s true for the whole of the Middle East.”

IANS