Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used his address to the UN General Assembly to flatly reject accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, calling the allegation "the biggest lie of the century." Speaking as dozens of delegates walked out before he took the podium, Netanyahu argued that no government carrying out genocide would distribute humanitarian aid on the scale Israel has, pointing to more than 1.1 million child vaccinations administered across Gaza and Israel's role in allowing food trucks into the territory. He framed these efforts as direct proof that the genocide label is false, asking the assembly what kind of genocidal regime hands out a million vaccine doses. The remarks came during a wider, emotionally charged speech in which he also defended Israel's war against Iran and accused critics of hypocrisy.

The claim lands amid sharp disagreement over how to characterize Israel's conduct in Gaza. A UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded last year that Israeli authorities had committed acts meeting the legal definition of genocide under the 1948 convention, and international monitors have separately confirmed famine conditions in parts of Gaza even as aid shipments continued. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who Netanyahu addressed directly during the speech, accused him of using the UN platform to "sanitize" the war's toll, which Gaza's health ministry puts at nearly 74,000 Palestinian deaths since the war began in October 2023. Israel maintains its military campaign is a defensive response to the Hamas-led attack that killed roughly 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, and Netanyahu's supporters argue the aid figures he cited undercut the genocide framing entirely.