Mass walkouts at UN as Netanyahu takes stage

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage Friday at the United Nations to a mass walkout of delegations as well as cheers from supporters invited to the audience. Delegates were called to order as Netanyahu began his speech, the first of the day at the annual General Assembly. Netanyahu said his country has "crushed the bulk" of armed Palestinian group Hamas's "terror machine" and sought to finish the job "as fast as possible." Netanyahu celebrated what he said was a series of Israeli strategic victories in the past year that also included targeting Iran's nuclear program and assassinating the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon. More deaths in Gaza  In Gaza, the civil defence agency said Israeli forces killed more than 20 people across the Palestinian territory on Friday, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the United Nations in New York. It comes as the Israeli military presses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City, from which hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee. The civil defence agency -- a rescue force operating under Hamas authority -- reported at least 22 people killed since dawn across the territory, including 11 in Gaza City. Israel's military said in a statement Friday that the air force had over the past day "struck over 140 targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including terrorists, tunnel shafts (and) military infrastructure". AFP footage from the Al-Shati refugee camp near Gaza City showed heavy damage to buildings after an air strike. Buildings stood with facades blown off by blasts, while people including a barefoot young girl searched through rubble for belongings. Toppled poles created a web of powerless electric wires on the ground. The United Nations on Friday released a long-awaited update of its database of companies with activities in Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, listing 158 firms from 11 countries. UN rights chief Volker Turk has condemned as a war crime Israel's policy of settlements on Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank. Big firms such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Motorola Solutions and Trip Advisor remained on the list, while several companies including Alstom and Opodo were removed, the non-exhaustive database showed. Most of the companies were based in Israel, while others were based in Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Britain and the United States. The UN rights office report called on companies to "take appropriate action to address the adverse human rights impacts" of their activities. The United Nations released a long-awaited update of its database of companies with activities in Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, listing 158 firms from 11 countries. UN rights chief Volker Turk has condemned as a war crime Israel's policy of settlements on Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank. Big firms such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Motorola Solutions and Trip Advisor remained on the list, while several companies including Alstom and Opodo were removed, the non-exhaustive database showed. Most of the companies were based in Israel, while others were based in Canada, China, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Britain and the United States. The UN rights office report called on companies to "take appropriate action to address the adverse human rights impacts" of their activities. "Where business enterprises identify that they have caused or contributed to adverse human rights impacts, they should provide for or cooperate in remediation through appropriate processes," it stressed. Turk said in a statement: "This report underscores the due diligence responsibility of businesses working in contexts of conflict to ensure their activities do not contribute to human rights abuses." Mostly Israeli firms The list was first produced by the UN human rights office in 2020 amid harsh Israeli criticism. It came in response to a UN Human Rights Council resolution four years earlier demanding a database of firms that profited from business in illegally occupied Palestinian territory. The UN rights office was asked to list companies found to be taking part in any of 10 specific activities, including construction, surveillance, demolitions and destruction of agricultural land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It has stressed that listing companies in the database was "not, and does not purport to be, a judicial or quasi-judicial process". Despite a requirement for the database to be updated annually, it has been revised just once before. That was in 2023, when only the 112 firms that had figured on the original list were reviewed. Fifteen of them were removed for various reasons, leaving 97. Friday's release marks the first update that includes fresh names. "A total of 68 new companies were added to the list published in 2023, while seven of those... were removed as they were no longer involved in any of the activities concerned," the rights office said. Contentious  The list is not exhaustive, the rights office said, acknowledging that it had only had time to review 215 of the 596 companies about which it received submissions. For the 2025 update, it said it had prioritised companies with a direct physical link in the settlements, in the fields of construction, real estate, mining and quarries.      

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