“There is no place in Iran” that Israel cannot reach, Netanyahu warns at the United Nations

Text size

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran on Friday that Israel would strike if it was hit first, warning that his country could reach any part of the clergy-run state while vowing to continue fighting in Gaza.

“I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you beat us, we will beat you,” Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly.

“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that applies to the entire Middle East.”

Delegates, including from Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, left the room as Netanyahu took the lectern for his address to a mix of cheers and angry shouts.

“After hearing the lies and slanders of many speakers on this podium about my country, I decided to come here and set the record straight,” Netanyahu said at the start of his speech.

Before his speech, protesters gathered outside Netanyahu's hotel in New York to demand an end to violence in Gaza and Lebanon.

On Wednesday, the United States, France and other allies unveiled a 21-day ceasefire proposal after President Joe Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

The White House said the call for a ceasefire had been “coordinated” with Israel, but Netanyahu's office said Thursday that the prime minister had not responded to the proposal.

“It is an American-French proposal to which the prime minister has not even responded,” a statement from Netanyahu's office said, adding that he had ordered the army to “continue fighting with full force.”

Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in a deadly cross-border firefight since the Iranian-backed group's Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

Netanyahu vowed on Friday that “Hamas must go” and that it would play no role in rebuilding Gaza, pledging to fight until “total victory.”

Since Monday, Israel has shifted its focus from the Gaza Strip to its northern front with Lebanon, where heavy bombings have killed 700 people and triggered an exodus of around 118,000 people.

Netanyahu said Israel would continue attacks on Lebanon “until we achieve our objectives.”

The United Nations said on Friday that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing the “deadliest period… in a generation.”

According to Lebanese authorities, the Israeli strikes have brought Lebanon's total death toll to over 1,500 people killed in the nearly year-long clashes.

That number exceeds the 1,200 mostly civilians killed during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which also killed around 160 people in Israel, most of them soldiers.