UN General Assembly 2025: Pakistan, Bangladesh specify 'pre-1967' borders for Palestine
After a record-setting walkout when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the podium at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, delegates filing back into the hall were met with outsized condemnations of Israel's genocide in Gaza, most notably from the leaders of Pakistan and Ireland.
Pakistan: Palestine must have 'pre-1967 borders' and Jerusalem as its capital
With Palestinian statehood at the centre of this year's high-level week at the UN, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was among the first to specify that Palestine should be recognised by the international community along no less than its "pre-1967 borders, and al-Quds al-Sharif as its capital".
Those borders refer to the areas Israel captured in the 1967 war with Arab states: the since-occupied West Bank, as well as Gaza. The UN considers Israeli outposts there illegal, according to Security Council Resolution 446.
Sharif also did not indicate that it should only be East Jerusalem that is the Palestinian capital, as much of the international community and pre-2017 US administrations had dictated, only al-Quds, meaning Jerusalem.
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Since 2019, Washington, largely in isolation, has considered all of Jerusalem to be the Israeli capital.
Sharif's particularisms would not have been notable except that the string of western nations now recognising a state of Palestine have never actually said where that state can materialise, if at all, given Netanyahu's goal to build out his Greater Israel project.
"Palestine can no longer remain under Israeli shackles. It must be liberated," Sharif said.
"The prolonged injustice is a stain on the global conscience and our collective moral failure. For nearly 80 years, the Palestinians have courageously endured Israel's brutal occupation of their homeland in the West Bank. Each passing day brings new brutality: illegal settlers who terrorise and kill with impunity, and nobody can challenge them and question them," he continued.
"And in Gaza, Israel's genocidal onslaught has unleashed unspeakable terror upon women and children in a manner we have not witnessed in the annals of history. In blind pursuit of its nefarious goals, the Israeli leadership has unleashed a shameful campaign against the innocent Palestinians, which history will always remember as one of its darkest chapters."
Sharif was also the only leader thus far to reference six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed along with several family members as their vehicle came under direct, targeted fire from Israeli forces in Gaza. Her final phone call with first responders marked a turning point in the perception of Israel and its war on Gaza.
"Can you imagine that little girl... as if she was our daughter? Can you imagine not having the compassion to spare her life? My agony and the agony of the entire Muslim ummah, indeed... we failed Hind Rajab".
Bangladesh: 'Extreme nationalism' driving nations into violence
Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on Friday warned the UN that "extreme nationalism, geopolitics that thrive on the suffering of others, and indifference to human pain are destroying the progress humanity has built through decades of struggle".
Without naming Israel, yet referencing the genocide in Gaza to illustrate his point, Yunus said that "neither future generations, nor history, will forgive us".
"I have never believed in frightening people into action. But today I must depart from that habit, for the truth before us is frightening," he continued. "Children are dying of hunger. Civilians are being killed without distinction. Entire neighbourhoods, including hospitals and schools, are being wiped from the map".
Yunus urged the creation of a Palestinian state along the "pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital".
"Only on [that] basis of the pre-1967 borders with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, can justice be done," he said.
Ireland: Israel must be held accountable for crimes in Gaza, and all tools should be used to isolate it
Ireland's Taoiseach Micheal Martin spoke at length on Israel's genocide in Gaza, and urged the international community to uphold its own post-World War Two laws to isolate and hold Israel accountable for war crimes.
"All signatories of the convention on genocide are obliged to act to prevent and to punish it. We cannot say we were not aware," he told the assembly.
"The prevention of genocide is not a matter of discretion of states. It is a legal and moral obligation, and it admits no delay. All members of this United Nations must reflect on what more they can do, and I especially call on those who have influence to use it," he added, in reference to the US.
"There cannot be business as usual," and Dublin has already taken several steps to do its part on the issue, Martin said.
It recognised the State of Palestine earlier this year alongside Spain. It has also intervened in the South African genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and is currently debating legislation that would ban trade with Israeli settlements - meaning goods that originate in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank or East Jerusalem.
"We will act to prevent those members of the government of Israel who have been instrumental in fomenting the unfolding disaster in Gaza from entering our country. We will continue to work with nine like-minded partners across the world to bring this human catastrophe to an end," Martin said.
"It is not possible to describe the scale of the physical and psychological suffering endured by the Palestinian people for two long and brutal years. Ireland stands in full solidarity with them".
Malta: Our country is perfectly positioned to facilitate peace talks
Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela offered up his island nation as an ideal facilitator of peace talks for some of the world's major crises, as he described a world where "barriers" are going up that shut people away from one another.
"Malta offers a unique platform for peace. We offer a unique mix that leaves Malta particularly well placed to host dialogue and discussions between parties, between countries, no matter how far apart they are," he told the general assembly.
"Our geography at the crossroads of two continents; our neutrality, enshrined in our constitution; our diplomatic tradition as a respected and knowledgeable fair broker. Together, they make Malta the ideal location to come together to try and find solutions to even the most intractable of disputes".
But while touting Malta's middle-of-the-road position, he insisted that in Gaza, "atrocities must stop now".
"It is so morally wrong and inhuman that so many innocent people are dying of hunger and severe malnutrition," Abela said. "The suffering of so many thousands of innocent civilians must come to an end now. It must come to an end now".
The international community, he added, turns the other way "because of improper considerations," but the world, "we cannot remain silent".
"I cannot bear to see anymore the physical and psychological pain and suffering in the eyes of the young children we bring over to Malta from Gaza to give them a better future".
In April, Malta took in four children from Gaza for medical treatment. Abela recalled one of them in his speech.
"I owe this to Ibrahim, a 15-year-old icon of the resilience and strength of the Palestinian people," he said. "Ibrahim is now receiving the best medical care and prosthetics in Malta after having both his legs blown off and severely injured by a missile fired from a drone in Gaza. His friends were killed in the same accident".
"These are the daily realities in Gaza, and we have to stand up and be counted. Not doing so would mean that we are complicit in what is happening," he said.
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