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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to arrive in New York City on Thursday for the UN General Assembly – where he is expected to defend his warmongering in Iran and Gaza in a speech during the afternoon.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has presided over the nearly three-year-long genocide in Gaza – which has killed at least 75,000 Palestinians, according to conservative estimates – while pursuing permanent war on states across the region and full annexation of the occupied West Bank.

The prime minister had originally planned to visit the U.S. for several days, but he has decided to cut his visit short by staying in New York City only for a few hours before flying out Thursday evening after his speech at the UN.

Activist organizations across New York City – led by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Democratic Socialists of America, among others – have planned a mass demonstration to confront Netanyahu on Thursday outside of the UN headquarters.

Taher Dahleh, an organizer from the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), told Truthout that Netanyahu is attempting to “insult and demean the international system and the rest of the states of the world” through his visit, while demonstrating that Israel can leverage forums like the UN’s General Assembly for its own interests and remain welcomed by the U.S.

More Evidence Shows Netanyahu Was Warned of Oct. 7 Attack and Did Nothing

But it cannot be ignored that Netanyahu has presided over “three years of genocide and spiraling regional war which has hit countries from Lebanon to Iran, Yemen to Iraq, in addition to devastating the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza,” Dahleh stated.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, charging him with war crimes, including “starvation as a method of warfare” and crimes against humanity committed during the war on Gaza since October 2023.

The 125 member states of the ICC are expected to abide by the arrest warrant and hand Netanyahu over to the ICC if he arrives in their territory.

But the Trump administration has ridiculed the ICC as “illegitimate” and “politicized,” and has worked to undermine the court. As far back as 2020, Trump began to target ICC members with sanctions, freezing their assets and threatening........

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