Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has been addressing the United Nations virtually after the US barred him from attending in person. Meanwhile, two European countries have sent warships to protect aid heading for Gaza. Watch and follow live below.
Thursday 25 September 2025 15:23, UK
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During his address to the UN, Mahmoud Abbas made it clear the Palestinian National Authority would not support Hamas having any future role in Gaza.
The president of Palestine and the authority also condemned Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks on civilians in Israel.
He said: “Despite all our people have suffered, we reject what Hamas carried out on the 7th of October. These actions that targeted Israeli civilians and took them hostages.”
“Because these actions do not represent the Palestinian people, nor do they represent their just struggle for freedom and independence.”
He added: “We have affirmed, and we will continue to affirm, that the Gaza Strip is an integral part of the State of Palestine, and that we are ready to bear full responsibility for governance and security, that Hamas will not have a role to play in governance.
“Hamas and other factions will have to hand over their weapons to the Palestinian National Authority.”
Finishing his remarks to the General Assembly, Mahmoud Abbas tells the UN that Palestinians will not leave their homeland.
He says: “The flag of Palestine will fly high in our skies as a symbol of dignity, steadfastness, and being free from the yoke of occupation. Palestine is ours. Jerusalem is the jewel of our hearts and our eternal capital.”
Abbas warns that there can be “no justice” until Palestine is free, and adds it’s time for the international community “to do right by the Palestinian people”.
He says:
“In conclusion, we say to our sons and daughters in the homeland, in the exile and in the diaspora, that no matter how much our wounds bleed and no matter how long the suffering lasts, it will not break our will to live and survive. The dawn of freedom will emerge.”
Abbas adds: “We will not leave our lands. Our people will remain rooted like the olive trees, same as the rocks. We will rise from under the rubble to rebuild.”
Watch Abbas speaking here…
Mahmoud Abbas outlines nine points he tells the UN General Assembly he wants to reiterate:
“In 1993, we signed the Oslo Accords, and we adhered to all its items and we recognised the state of Israel,” Abbas says.
But he adds that while Palestine is following such agreements, Israel is undermining them.
“We adopted a culture of peace. We made all our efforts to build the institutions of a modern Palestinian state that lives side by side in peace and security with Israel. But Israel did not adhere to the signed agreements as well, and has worked systematically on undermining them.”
‘Thank you’
Abbas then moves on to saying thank you to all the recent countries that have formally recognised a Palestinian state.
“I would like to, on behalf of the Palestinian people, express our gratitude and appreciation to all the states that recently recognised the State of Palestine and those that intend to recognise the State of Palestine soon,” Abbas says.
He highlights the countries that kicked off the week’s proceedings in New York by formally recognising a Palestinian state.
Abbas adds: “We would like to thank France, the UK, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra and Denmark for the recognition of the State of Palestine.”
Mahmoud Abbas says “our wounds are deep and our calamity is great”.
He tells the UN that seven million Palestinians are still living with the tragedies of the Nakba and displacement since 1948.
“The tragedies of the Israeli aggression and occupation for decades… 80 years our people have spent under occupation, killing, arrests and settlements and the theft of money, property and lands,” he says.
“This still continues without any deterrent or accountability for years of oppression, deprivation and protection for the occupier and enabling occupier.”
Abbas goes on to say there have been “more than 1,000 resolutions at the United Nations”, but argues that none of them have been implemented.
“There have been many efforts and many international initiatives without reaching an end to this tragic situation that the Palestinian people are living under,” he adds.
Mahmoud Abbas moves on to talking about Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
Today, an estimated 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Abbas says:
“The extremist Israeli government continues to implement its settlement policies… the latest was the construction plan for E1, which would divide the West Bank into two parts and would isolate occupied Jerusalem from its surroundings and would undermine the option of the two state solution in a blatant violation of international law and relevant Security Council resolutions.”
He also warns of the “terrorism of settlers”.
Abbas adds: “They burn the homes and fields, they uproot trees and attack villages and attack unarmed Palestinian civilians. In fact, they killed them in broad daylight under the protection of the Israeli army.”
He also raises the issue of attacks on Christian religious sites.
Mahmoud Abbas, president of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority, tells the UN that the people of Gaza “have been facing a war of genocide, destruction, starvation and displacement”.
He says Israel has “imposed a stifling siege on an entire people” and destroyed more than 80% of homes, schools, hospitals, churches, mosques, facilities and infrastructure.
Abbas says what Israel is carrying out is “not merely an aggression, it is a war crime and a crime against humanity that is both documented and monitored”.
“It will be recorded in history books and the pages of international conscience as one of the most horrific chapters of humanitarian tragedy in the 20th and 21st centuries,” he adds.
Abbas also condemned the recent Israeli strikes on Qatar, which targeted Hamas leaders.
He warned Benjamin Netanyahu has set out a plan for what he calls a “greater Israel” – which Abbas says would involve Israel expanding into sovereign Arab states.
Mahmoud Abbas, president of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority, is speaking now at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
He’s speaking virtually because the US, Israel’s ally, blocked his entry to the country for the annual summit.
But his speech comes with a growing number of nations formally recognising Palestinian statehood in the past week, including the UK, against the backdrop of the crisis in Gaza.
You can watch his speech live using the stream at the top of this page.
Our Middle East correspondent Adam Parsons has previewed the President of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas’s speech to the General Assembly.
He explains that he thinks he’ll try to “contrast” himself to recent “inflammatory rhetoric” from Israel.
Watch his analysis here…
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, president of Somalia, is speaking now at the UN – starting today’s session of the General Assembly in New York.
He’ll be followed by the presidents of Montenegro, Palestine and Yemen, and many more.
You can watch the world leaders speak in the live stream at the top of this page.
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