More than 100 delegates walk out of Netanyahu's UNGA speech

More than 100 United Nations delegates left their seats and exited the assembly hall as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage for his General Assembly speech in New York on 24 September 2026. Dozens of countries' delegations walked out of or were absent from the speech in protest over Israel's war in Gaza, according to Al Jazeera's count of visibly empty seats.

The walkout marked the second year in a row that Netanyahu faced a mass walkout at the General Assembly, according to Foreign Policy. The protest came as Israel's military campaign in Gaza continued and as Israeli voters prepared to head to the polls for a referendum on Netanyahu's government, with just over a month to go, Foreign Policy reported.

Why the walkout matters now

Netanyahu opened his remarks by addressing the departing delegates directly. "If there are any other moral cowards who haven't yet left this hall, please do so now," he said, according to Foreign Policy's account of the speech. He then framed Israel's military actions against Iran as "defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this room."

Netanyahu referenced his first speech to the gathering 14 years ago, when he argued the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. "That's exactly what we did," he said, calling it one of the easiest decisions he had made as prime minister, because without it "we'd all be dead," Foreign Policy reported.

What Netanyahu said from the lectern

Netanyahu asked the assembly whether any other country the size of New Jersey could fight a seven-front war. He also repeatedly invoked his older brother Yonatan, killed during the 1976 Operation Entebbe mission, returning to a line he said his brother told him: "We're going to win, because we have no other choice."

Netanyahu added that "Israel didn't commit genocide, Israel prevented genocide," and said that was what "Mr. Mamdani's Hamas buddies" would have done to Israel, according to Foreign Policy's report of the speech. Mamdani had earlier said he would have the New York Police Department arrest Netanyahu, then concluded it was not legally possible.

Where the audience really was

Al Jazeera's analysis framed the speech as aimed partly at a domestic audience, with Israeli elections weeks away, asking whether Netanyahu's real audience was the United Nations or back home. Foreign Policy likewise noted the timing, with just over a month before Israelis vote in a referendum on his government.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the gathering virtually for the second consecutive year, saying in prepared remarks that the Palestinian delegation was denied U.S. visas again. "Denying the Palestinian delegation access to the U.N. headquarters is a violation of the United States' obligation as the host country," Abbas said. Abbas criticised Israel's continued strikes in Gaza and rejected the measures against his delegation, saying, "We reject these unlawful punitive measures, and we reject the accusations and justifications on which they were based," according to Foreign Policy. Al Jazeera published a list of which countries' seats were visibly empty and which delegations remained, on 25 September 2026, the day after the speech. Netanyahu's government faces a referendum on his leadership as the walkout and the speech's domestic framing converge ahead of the Israeli vote.foreignpolicy.com+1