What to know from the UN: Before Netanyahu speech, 2 leaders denounce Israeli actions to their peers

The topics of Israel’s war with Hamas and fighting in Lebanon have dominated speeches at the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting this week. On Thursday, one side finally got the podium — including a moment of drama amid the ocean of words from the world's leaders. The first words from MAHMOUD ABBAS, head of the Palestinian Authority, were a single sentence repeated three times: “We will not leave. We will not leave. We will not leave.” Abbas used the rostrum of the U.N. General Assembly as he typically does — to criticize Israel. But this was the first time he did so since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel that triggered an Israeli military operation that has devastated the Gaza Strip. He accused Israel of destroying Gaza and making it unlivable. And he said that his government should govern post-war Gaza as part of an independent Palestinian state, a vision that Israel’s hardline government rejects. Israel has maintained its military operations are justified and are...