Dozens of officials from different countries booed and left the room when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium to speak this Friday before the 80th UN General Assembly.

As the delegations left In protest of his responsibility for the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, repeated chants of “Please, order in the room” were heard over the loudspeakers.

At the same time, there was applause and cheers for Netanyahu.

Outside, protesters against Israel’s war in Gaza gathered in Times Square.

The massive protest against the Israeli prime minister comes after several countries—the United Kingdom, France, Canada, among others—recognized the Palestinian state this week.

Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, accused the Palestinian representatives of “theatrics” and of “orchestrating a staged exit,” according to the Jewish News Syndicate.

In his address to the General Assembly, Netanyahu called the definition “national suicide” for Israel and a “shame” that sends the message that “murdering Jews has its rewards.”

It is “madness “Absolute madness, and we will not do it,” the Israeli prime minister declared.

In mid-September, a UN commission held that “Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” to which Netanyahu asked on Friday if a country that commits genocide would ask a population to move away from danger: “Did the Nazis ask the Jews to leave?”

He then rejected accusations that Israel is purposely starving the people of Gaza.

If some Gazans do not have enough food, it is because Hamas “steals it, hoards it, and sells it,” he said.

Netanyahu recalled that last year he took the stand and displayed a map titled “The Curse,” referring to “the curse of Iran’s terrorist axis,” which he displayed again this time.

“This axis threatened world peace, the stability of our region, and the very existence of my country, Israel,” he noted.

Over the past year, Israel “harshly suppressed” the Houthis, destroyed “most of Hamas’s terrorist machinery” and “weakened Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said.

“Most importantly… we have devastated Iran’s atomic weapons and ballistic missile program,” he added.

Touching countries on the map, Netanyahu listed various leaders, including Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, and Iran’s top atomic scientists, whom Israel killed. They are all “gone,” he said.

“Lay down your weapons,” Netanyahu urged Hamas’s “remaining” leaders. “Let my people go” and “free the hostages,” he added.

“If you do, you will live; if not, Israel will hunt you down,” he threatened.

The alliance with the United States

Later, the Israeli prime minister displayed other signs and gave a “pop quiz.”

“Who is shouting death to America?” he asked on the first of the signs, and gave the options: “a) Iran, b) Hamas, c) Hezbollah, d) Houthis, e) all of the above.”

Shouts were heard in the room, and Netanyahu selected option “e) all of the above.”

Netanyahu also maintained that US President Donald Trump “understands better than any other leader that Israel and the US face a common threat.”

He added that, following the October 7 attack 2023, many leaders supported Israel, but that support has since “evaporated.”

Netanyahu also addressed accusations that Israel is “deliberately targeting civilians.”

“The opposite is true,” he asserted, saying that Israel has dropped “millions of leaflets and sent millions of text messages” urging civilians to evacuate Gaza City.

Meanwhile, “Hamas is implanting itself in mosques, schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings” to force civilians to “remain in harm’s way,” “often threatening them at gunpoint,” he described.

After concluding his speech, Netanyahu was given a standing ovation by a large group of observers.

Some raised their fists in support of the Israeli prime minister, a stark contrast to the official delegate seats in the main hall, which were virtually empty.

Israel has banned Foreign journalists have been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip independently since the start of the war nearly two years ago, making it difficult to verify claims by either side.

Some journalists have been allowed into Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces with controlled access.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 251 were taken hostage.

There are 48 hostages left in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed to be alive.

At least 65,500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the Gazan Health Ministry.

Additional reporting by Jonathan Csapo in New York and Tom Bennett in Jerusalem.

A pitch aimed at Americans who support Trump

Analysis by Tom Bateman, BBC State Department correspondent.

The majority of Netanyahu's speech was directed at the American public, and more specifically at Trump's MAGA support base (Make America Great Again).

Netanyahu repeatedly implied that Israelis and Americans share the same existential threat, including references to 9/11 and displaying a banner quoting extremists chanting “Death to America!” with the subtext that Israel is doing the “dirty work” of eliminating its common enemies.

The Israeli prime minister referenced Taylor Force, an American whose assassination in Tel Aviv in 2016 led to an act of Congress banning US payments to the Palestinian Authority.

And in an even more specific appeal to MAGA and Trump’s evangelical Christian support base, he falsely claimed that Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem are better protected under Israeli military occupation than under limited Palestinian self-rule.

All of this was directed at Americans who support Trump, showing that the Israeli leader is likely aware of polls suggesting that Historical support for Israel in the US has recently declined due to Israel's conduct in Gaza.

This Friday, he used his speech to try to halt the decline in that support.