Real war criminals are not in Israel: Netanyahu tells UN, cuts short US trip

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticised the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for seeking 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 ICC has sought arrest warrants for the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the 7 October Hamas 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."

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 8 October, 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, and 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 UNGA on who might govern Gaza once the war 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 PM brought props to his speech 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, showed "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."

Later, Netanyahu cut short his visit to New York and returned to Israel on Friday, his office said, following a major Israeli airstrike on Hezbollah's headquarters in Lebanese capital Beirut. The announcement came after Netanyahu's address to the UN in New York, where he was supposed to stay until Saturday night, after the Jewish sabbath.

The strike marked the most intense bombardment on Beirut in the past year, levelling six buildings and sending massive clouds of orange and black smoke over the city. The Israeli military described the operation as a "precise strike," targeting Hezbollah's central headquarters, located beneath residential buildings in the densely populated southern suburb of Haret Hreik.

Rear-admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, said in a televised statement, "We have targeted the main Hezbollah command centre in Beirut, located deep within civilian areas." The US Pentagon confirmed that it had not received prior warning about the strike. A Pentagon spokesperson said US defence secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart as the operation was underway.

The US is actively involved in diplomatic efforts aimed at de-escalating the conflict, which has escalated in recent weeks. While the full scale of casualties remains unclear, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported that the Lebanese Red Cross deployed 10 teams to the scene of the strike. Sahel Hospital, located near the site, confirmed that it had received 10 wounded, three of them critically injured, including a Syrian child.

Local media showed emergency workers sifting through the rubble in search of survivors, with flashlights illuminating the destruction as night fell over the city. Plumes of smoke were visible for miles, and local TV footage showed the aftermath — entire buildings reduced to rubble, with emergency personnel struggling to extinguish fires amid the debris.

The force of the explosion was so powerful that it rattled windows and shook homes as far as 30 km away the impact site. Just before the strikes, thousands had gathered in a nearby suburb for the funeral of three Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, who were killed in earlier Israeli strikes. Following the latest bombardment, residents of the area were seen hastily gathering their belongings and fleeing toward Beirut's airport.

The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has seen an escalation in recent days, with Israel launching a wave of airstrikes across southern Lebanon since 23 September. Lebanese officials report that more than 700 people have been killed in the bombardment, including at least 50 children. Tens of thousands have fled their homes in Lebanon's southern and northeastern regions.

The strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs occurred as the US continues to push for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Washington has proposed a three-week ceasefire, supported by the European Union and several Arab nations. However, Netanyahu's recent comments signal that Israel is intent on continuing its campaign against Hezbollah and its ally Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.