Shadow of war looms over UN General Assembly

Israel appears increasingly isolated as world leaders lament situation in Middle East

US President Joe Biden speaks during the General Debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. EPA

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The UN General Assembly's opening day was overshadowed on Tuesday by a seemingly imminent all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah and the apparent inability of the 193-member world body to do anything at all to stop it.

A string of leaders, including US President Joe Biden and Iran's new President Masoud Pezeshkian, lamented the state of world affairs, but none was able to articulate a convincing off-ramp from the apparent trajectory towards a broader regional war.

In his final address to the UN General Assembly before his term ends in January, Mr Biden said the world stands at an “inflection point” and expressed frustration that a months-long, US-led push for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel has come to nothing, even as he suggested a diplomatic solution could still be found to prevent Israel going to war with Lebanon's Iran-backed militia Hezbollah.

“Even as the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible. In fact, it remains the only path to lasting security,” Mr Biden said in his speech in front of the UN chamber's famous green marble backdrop.

But as he was speaking, a swift resolution to the crisis appeared remote. Lebanese health authorities on Tuesday raised the death toll from two days of Israeli air strikes against Hezbollah to 564, as Israel's military vowed it would do “whatever is necessary” to push the militia away from the border.

This week's air strikes come after pager and walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon last week, for which Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “We can't go on like this”.

“We are edging towards the unimaginable – a powder keg that risks engulfing the world,” he told the General Assembly.

While the wars in Sudan and Ukraine also drew considerable attention on Tuesday, time and again speakers returned to the situation in the Middle East and articulated their anger towards Israel, whose military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,400 people, local health officials say, in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks that killed about 1,200 people.

Israel, which drew an upswell of international support and sympathy after October 7, appeared increasingly isolated at the UN on Tuesday. The Israeli ambassador is scheduled to speak on Thursday.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticised Israel's operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

“The right to self-defence became a right for vengeance, which prevents a deal for the release of hostages and delays a ceasefire,” he said.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II told the General Assembly that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to an attack on the UN, saying the presence of its flag has been unable to ensure protection for civilians from Israeli attacks.

“The Israeli government’s assault has resulted in one of the fastest death rates in recent conflicts, one of the fastest rates of starvation caused by war, the largest cohort of child amputees and unprecedented levels of destruction this Israeli government has killed more children, more journalists, more aid workers and more medical personnel than any other war in recent memory,” he said.

And Iran, which funds Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen's Houthis and several other militias, accused Israel of “barbarism”.

“The international community must urgently intervene to establish a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and end Israel’s desperate barbarism in Lebanon before it engulfs the region and the world,” Mr Pezeshkian said. “Israel has been defeated in Gaza and no amount of barbaric violence can restore its myth of invincibility.”

Sheikh Tamim, the Emir of Qatar, told the UN General Assembly that Israel’s campaign in Gaza is "genocide".

“It is a crime of genocide by means of the most sophisticated weapons against the people besieged in a detention camp where there is no escape from the barrage of aerial bombing,” he said.

Mr Biden had sought to define his foreign policy legacy during his speech, highlighting his international leadership in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But history may remember him as the US leader who failed to stop a major Middle East conflagration.

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