Delegates leave as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to deliver a speech during the General Debate of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters in New York, Sep 26, 2025. Photo:Xinhua

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Friday morning, protesters on the streets of New York City addressed Netanyahu and the world. Meanwhile, Yemeni people held a large-scale rally to protest Israel's air strikes and show solidarity with Gaza, according to media reports.

According to the New York Times, the demonstrators began gathering in Times Square, across town from the United Nations building, early in the morning. A Palestinian flag flapped in the breeze as some of the protesters, most of them young, held signs reading "End All US Aid to Israel" and "Stop Starving Gaza Now!"

The crowd cheered loudly when organizers announced that heads of state had walked out of the General Assembly chamber en masse during Netanyahu's speech.

At the same time, on Friday local time, a large number of Yemeni people held marches and rallies in cities such as Sanaa and Hodeidah to protest Israel's ongoing military operations in the Middle East and express solidarity with the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Tens of thousands of Yemeni citizens took to the streets to denounce Israel's atrocities, chant anti-Israel and anti-US slogans, wave Yemeni and Palestinian national flags, and voice their firm support for the people of Gaza, state broadcaster China Central Television reported on early Saturday morning.

On Friday, when Netanyahu began to deliver his speech during the general debate of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), many delegates walked out of the UNGA hall in protest, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

In his address, Netanyahu criticized those countries announcing their recognition of the State of Palestine over the past few days, saying: "You know what message the leaders who recognized a Palestinian state this week sent to the Palestinians? It's a very clear message. Murdering Jews pays off," according to the Xinhua.

France, Britain, Portugal, Australia and Canada are among Western nations that have recently recognized the State of Palestine in support of the two-state solution over the past few days. So far, more than 150 UN member states have recognized Palestine.

Scores of delegates walked out of the General Assembly hall in protest when Netanyahu took the stage. He was booed by some delegates, but was applauded by some others,according to the Xinhua report.

In his speech, Netanyahu accused the Palestinians of not believing in the two-state solution. The Israeli prime minister claimed that his opposition to a Palestinian state "is not simply my policies or my government's policy. It's the policy of the state and people of the state of Israel."

Addressing world leaders via video link on Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority had recognized Israel's "right to exist" as early as 1988 and again in 1993, Xinhua reported.

"I speak to you today after almost two years in which our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have been facing a war of genocide, destruction, starvation and displacement," Abbas said, adding that the genocide has been "waged by the Israeli occupation forces in which they killed and injured more than 220,000 Palestinians."

Hamas said the mass walkout of delegations before Netanyahu's UN speech shows Israel's "isolation" as a result of the Gaza war, France 24 reported on Friday.

"Boycotting Netanyahu's speech is one manifestation of Israel's isolation and the consequences of the war of extermination," Taher al-Nunu, the media adviser to the head of Hamas's political bureau, said in a statement.

Zhu Yongbiao, executive director of the Research Center for the Belt and Road at Lanzhou University, noted that protests in New York show there are voices in the US opposing the government's pro-Israel position, but these forces have long been suppressed and have not been able to influence policy.

"Although such sentiments have some impact on US Middle East policy, they are insufficient in the short term to alter Washington's support for Israel," Zhu said, adding that in the coming period, Israel is likely to maintain its hard-line stance on the Palestinian issue and continue its unilateral course.

Earlier this month, the UNGA adopted a draft resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. The declaration, circulated at a high-level international conference held at the United Nations in late July, sets out an action-oriented pathway toward a peaceful settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the realization of the two-state solution.