Empty chairs greet Israel PM at UN as diplomats walk out during his speech ::: "Lay down your arms. Free hostages ....If you don’t Israel will hunt you down," asserts Netanyahu

Scores of diplomats walked out of the UN General Assembly as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the session, protesting Israel's war in Gaza. Netanyahu vowed to "finish the job" and said his speech was broadcast across Gaza to pressure  Hamas. 

“Much of the world no longer remembers October 7. But we remember,” 

Israeli PM tells UN that his country ‘must finish the job’ in Gaza after dozens of delegates walk out in protest. 

He remained assertive.  

In his speech to the United Nations general assembly in New York, Netanyahu said that “Israel must finish the job in Gaza as fast as possible”.

He said the “final remnants of Hamas are holed up in Gaza City”.

Speaking to the Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza, via loudspeakers facing towards the territory, Netanyahu said he would not rest until all the hostages are brought home. To Hamas, he said:

Lay down your arms. Free all [the] hostages now … If you do, you will live. If you don’t Israel will hunt you down.

( In an “unprecedented operation”, Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli army would take over the mobile phones of Gaza residents and Hamas operatives and his speech would be broadcast live through the mobile devices. )

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“Much of the world no longer remembers October 7. But we remember,” Netanyahu said during his address.

Speaking in Hebrew, the Israeli leader directed his remarks to the hostages still held in Gaza: “We’ve not forgotten you – not even for a second.”

Near the start of his speech, Netanyahu said he had loudspeakers placed at the Israeli side of the Gaza border to broadcast the address into the Palestinian territory in hopes that hostages held there would hear his vow that they would not be forgotten.

The Israeli leader pushed back in his harshest terms yet against a flurry of diplomatic moves by leading US allies that deepened Israel’s international isolation over its conduct of a nearly two-year-old war against Hamas militants in Gaza.

“This week, the leaders of France, Britain, Australia, Canada and other countries unconditionally recognised a Palestinian state. They did so after the horrors committed by Hamas on 7 October – horrors praised on that day by nearly 90% of the Palestinian population.”

“You know what message the leaders who recognise the Palestinian state this week sent to the Palestinians?” Netanyahu said. “It’s a very clear message: murdering Jews pays off.”

“The situation is becoming more difficult,” said Um Zaki, a mother of five who has stayed in Sabra, Gaza City, 

.....describing rising food prices and increasing scarcity. “People who sell things like food …have left to the south,” she said.

Ismail Zayda, a 40-year-old with a week-old baby girl and two young boys displaced from Gaza City to a camp near the coast, said he was making ends meet with canned supplies.

“There are no vegetables at all,” he said.

Gaza City municipality says it also faces a worsening water crisis, with supplies meeting less than 25% of daily needs. Fuel shortages and security risks have curtailed water deliveries, Reuters reported.

Israel says there is no quantitative limit on food aid entering Gaza and accuses Hamas, which it has been at war with for nearly two years, of stealing aid – accusations the Palestinian militant group denies.

Cogat, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows into the territory, said humanitarian aid to the northern Gaza Strip continues and that it seeks to expand the capacity of Kissufim crossing into central Gaza threefold.