Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing a difficult reelection campaign at home, addresses the UN Thursday where he is expected to lash out at both enemies as well as allies that have crossed him in recent months.
Netanyahu will also likely raise the case of Israeli ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter whose son, a soldier, was badly injured in an alleged Palestinian ramming attack in the occupied West Bank, reported AFP.
Foremost among Netanyahu's enemies in New York is the city's leftist Mayor Zohran Mamdani who recently vowed to execute an ICC arrest warrant when the visiting leader arrived in the city for the UN's signature gathering.
The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) said in 2024 it had reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu was responsible for alleged war crimes in his Gaza campaign that responded to Hamas' deadly October 7, 2023 attacks. Netanyahu denies the ICC claims.
But Mamdani later conceded he did not have the authority for such a maneuver, leading to howls of indignation from Netanyahu and his backers.
Ahead of his turn at the UN's signature diplomatic week, Netanyahu said he was going to "tell the truth about you," addressing Mamdani and accusing him of "supporting the Hamas terrorist monsters."
He also baselessly accused Mamdani of "inciting riots against New York Jews."
Mamdani, who has long supported Palestinian rights and accused Israel of war crimes, fired back Tuesday and said "we all know that what the prime minister has said in that video is not true."
One of Netanyahu's fiercest critics, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, will not be in the room after Washington denied him a visa to attend.
Erstwhile allies of Israel Britain and France will likely be in Netanyahu's firing line Thursday.
Britain has imposed limited sanctions on Israeli exports from the occupied West Bank, a move France recently followed on.
French President Emmanuel Macron drew Israel's ire for claiming Hamas was not active in the West Bank. Hamas' stronghold has traditionally been Gaza.
Netanyahu's office attacked "the gross absurdity of the claim," adding Hamas attacks "Jews almost every day."
"They have murdered countless Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria," it added, using the Biblical name for the West Bank, which Israel seized in 1967.
Netanyahu already had poor relations with Macron, who led a push by Western nations at last year's UN General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state.
Iran, which Israel and the United States have been at war with since launching attacks in February, will almost certainly feature in Netanyahu's speech.
Israel is insisting Washington take more comprehensive military action in Iran to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
- Ferocious criticism of UN -
But the war is unpopular with the US public, and gas prices have surged in its wake.
Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Dannon said after Iran's president spoke Wednesday that Tehran "arms Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza and Judea and Samaria, and militias in Iraq."
He called it a "regime that murders its own citizens when they dare to protest against it."
Netanyahu will almost certainly criticize the United Nations and its outgoing leader Antonio Guterres of whom he has been a persistent critic, even more so since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Unusually, Guterres this week referenced in full the title of legally binding International Criminal Court measures that accuse Israel of "genocide" in Gaza.
Netanyahu's government has repeatedly accused a UN agency of providing cover for Hamas militants, claiming that some of its employees took part in the group's attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Despite a US-brokered ceasefire in October 2025, Israel has continued its airstrikes and restricted entry of equipment that international groups say is required for the territory's reconstruction to begin.
Acting Commissioner-General of the UN's Palestinian refugees agency Christian Saunders told AFP this week Israel was being "extremely difficult" about letting in vital supplies like engine oil to Gaza for relief operations while permitting luxury commercial products.
"I think (the Israeli government) are trying to show the Israeli public why they should re-elect them," Saunders added.
As in past years when Netanyahu has addressed the UN General Assembly, he faces protest both inside and outside -- from delegations leaving the meeting in opposition to his policies, and demonstrators gathered nearby.
Israelis go to the polls on October 27.
