UNITED NATIONS — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Friday that Israel would “finish the job” in Gaza as President Donald Trump expressed fresh optimism that a deal to end the fighting in the enclave was near.
Netanyahu’s remarks to the United Nations General Assembly cast doubt on an imminent breakthrough. While Qatar had been mediating between the Hamas militant group and Israel with U.S. support, those talks have largely stalled after Israel earlier this month bombed Hamas leaders in Doha.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday moments after Netanyahu’s remarks, Trump said a deal on Gaza is “very close.”
“I think it’s a deal that will get the hostages back. It’s going to be a deal that will end the war,” he said.
Netanyahu’s message to the U.N. was very different. He said Israel’s military was “not done yet” and would continue its operation to rout Hamas from Gaza City.
“The final remnants of Hamas are holed up in Gaza City. They vow to repeat the atrocities of Oct. 7,” he said. “That is why Israel must finish the job. That is why we want to do so.”
Netanyahu will meet with Trump on Monday at the White House, where the U.S. leader will brief him on his conversations with Gulf and Arab leaders on his administration’s 21-point plan for how Gaza will be run and reconstructed when the war ends.
Trump told those leaders in a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. earlier this week that he would not allow Netanyahu to annex the West Bank. But his government has already done much to extend and solidify its control of the West Bank, including expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied territory and tightening its security presence there.
The Israeli premier also slammed France, the U.K. and other countries’ recognition of a Palestinian state.
He said an independent Palestinian state is “sheer madness, it’s insane and we won’t do it.”
“What you’re doing is giving the ultimate reward to intolerant fanatics who perpetrated and supported the Oct. 7 massacre,” he said. In former President Barack Obama’s first term, Netanyahu for a moment suggested openness to two states, but other than that brief aberration, he has long been a forceful opponent of and vowed never to allow the so-called two-state solution.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who is leading the Palestinian statehood effort, has said the move would begin an international reorientation toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and could be the first step toward negotiating a two-state solution. Macron has been frustrated by the United State’s unwillingness to pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza and fears that the chance for the creation of an independent Palestinian state is on the verge of disappearing forever.
Netanyahu argued the diplomatic campaign was motivated by Western leaders’ cowardice.
“We will not commit national suicide because you don’t have the guts to face down a hostile media and antisemitic mobs demanding Israel’s blood,” Netanyahu told the U.N.
Dozens of diplomats from Middle Eastern, African and European nations walked out from the U.N. General Assembly hall in protest before Netanyahu began speaking.
Trump, like Netanyahu, has called for Hamas to immediately release all of the remaining hostages and the bodies of those who have died. Twenty hostages are believed to be alive, of 48 that have not been returned.
The U.S. has not pressured Israel to cease its military campaign in Gaza, despite its deep global unpopularity. More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s operation launched after the surprise Hamas assault on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people.
The Israeli premier always brings props to his U.N. addresses, and Friday was no different. In addition to several posters harping on the threats of Iran, Hamas and other Tehran-backed militant groups, he also said Israel had installed loudspeakers around the Gaza Strip so that his address could be heard there.
“To the remaining Hamas leaders and jailers of our hostages, I now say: lay down your arms, let my people go. Free the hostages, all of them. … If you do, you will live. If you don’t, Israel will hunt you down.”
He later addressed the remaining hostages in Hebrew and also referred audience members to a QR code on his jacket linking to a website listing the atrocities of Oct. 7.
