Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to target Iran if the country’s proxies continued to target Israel during his highly anticipated address Friday morning at the United Nations General Assembly.
The Israeli leader is one of the most polarizing figures at the U.N. this week, and his country’s military is preparing for a possible ground invasion into southern Lebanon, even though international leaders are trying to prevent that from occurring. Iran funds and supports Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon.
“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East,” he warned.
Iran backs several militias and terrorist groups in the Middle East, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, which have all carried out attacks against Israel over the last year. Hamas was the first, initiating the conflict with its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack.
Hamas overpowered the border fence that morning and proceeded to kill roughly 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others, about a hundred of whom continue to be held against their will in Gaza. Netanyahu vowed to secure their release, though his government has prioritized degrading Hamas’s military capabilities over agreeing to a deal to get them back.
Israeli and Hezbollah forces have engaged in a controlled conflict that has primarily taken place in northern Israel and southern Lebanon since the day after Hamas’s attack. Israeli leaders have opted to escalate their conflict with Hezbollah by increasing its attacks, and they have indicated there’s a possibility of an Israeli ground invasion, while leaders from across the globe are hoping not to see the war escalate. Beirut was hit by a bit strike on Friday at around the same time as Netanyahu’s New York speech.
“We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another Oct. 7-style massacre,” Netanyahu said. “For 18 years, Hezbollah brazenly refused to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which requires it to move its forces away from our borders. Instead, Hezbollah moved right up to our border. They secretly dug terror tunnels to infiltrate our communities and indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets into our towns and villages.”
Iran rarely carries out attacks against Israel directly, though the country did so back in April when it launched about 300 missiles, drones, and rockets into Israel. Israel, with the help of its allies, including the United States, was able to intercept nearly all of them despite the unprecedented number of projectiles fired at the country.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday and warned that Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah “cannot go unanswered.”
Netanyahu, during his address, used two maps of the Middle East as props during his address. He called the first a “blessing,” which showed “Israel and its Arab partners forming a land bridge connecting Asia and Europe, between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea,” while Netanyahu dubbed the other map that darkened Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon a “curse,” and he said it showed “an arc of terror that Iran has created and imposed from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean.”
The “curse” map, which demonstrates Iranian success in the region, does not include Gaza or the West Bank.
Multiple world leaders, including President Joe Biden, called for a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that would allow for an extended period of calm for both sides and mediators to determine a viable long-term strategy.
“The situation between Lebanon and Israel since October 8th, 2023 is intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation. This is in nobody’s interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon,” the leaders of the U.S., Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar said in a joint statement.
Netanyahu’s office seemingly rejected the proposal on Thursday but also appeared to walk it back.
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“The report about a ceasefire is incorrect. This is an American-French proposal that the Prime Minister has not even responded to,” his office said on Thursday. “The report about the purported directive to ease up on the fighting in the north is the opposite of the truth.”
On Friday, Netanyahu’s office released a new statement saying it “shares the aims of the U.S.-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes.”