United States President Donald Trump has told the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that the war in Gaza must stop immediately, while calling the recent recognition of Palestinian statehood by several Western countries a “reward” for Hamas.
“We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately,” Trump told world leaders in New York on Tuesday, adding that he has been “deeply engaged” in trying to secure a ceasefire.
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He reiterated his call for the captives taken from Israel and being held in Gaza to be returned home.
“We have to get it done. We have to negotiate peace. We have to get the hostages back. We want all 20 back,” he said, referring to the 20 of the 48 remaining captives still believed to be alive.
Those who support peace should be united in demanding the release of the captives, he told the UNGA, while rejecting recent Western countries’ recognition of Palestinian statehood.
“As if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognise the Palestinian state. The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities,” Trump said.
His words were in contrast to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s, who said at a meeting on the two-state solution on Sunday that statehood for Palestinians “is a right, not a reward”.
Sultan Barakat, a professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, said that while Trump called for the war to stop at once, he fell short of mentioning how.
“He knows that the main reason for [the war] sustaining itself at the moment is the fact that he is supporting it,” Barakat told Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s support for Israel.
Gaza truce offers
Trump had little criticism for Israel, which launched a deadly war on Gaza in October 2023, after Hamas’s attacks in southern Israel.
Trump blamed the breakdowns in ceasefire negotiations on Hamas, which governs Gaza, and insisted that the Palestinian group “has repeatedly rejected reasonable offers to make peace”.
On the other side of the talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continually been accused of stalling the ceasefire negotiations since the beginning of Israel’s war.
Israel targeted Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital, Doha, this month as the Palestinian leaders were meeting there to discuss the latest truce proposal put forth by the US.
The Israeli prime minister broke the last ceasefire with Hamas in mid-March and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has led to famine and deaths from starvation in the enclave.
Hamas on Tuesday denied any responsibility for the failure to reach a deal to end the war in Gaza. “We have never been an obstacle to reaching an agreement,” it said in a statement.
“The US administration, the mediators and the world know that Netanyahu is the sole obstructionist in all attempts to reach an agreement.”
Hamas said it was ready for a truce that will lead to the release of captives and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, as well as a withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza, but that Netanyahu has refused to commit to a full withdrawal.
This month, Netanyahu decided to seize Gaza City, launching a ground invasion that has killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced thousands more.
More than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war, which a UN commission has described as amounting to genocide. The US has been heavily criticised for continuing to arm Israel, as it intensifies its attacks.
The US president also met leaders from Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates on the sidelines of the UNGA to discuss the war.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the meeting was “very fruitful”, adding that a joint declaration from the meeting would be published.
Trump also dedicated some of his speech at the UNGA to Iran, describing Tehran as the “world’s number one sponsor of terror”. He promised that Iran would “never possess a nuclear weapon”.
“Three months ago in Operation Midnight Hammer, seven American B-2 bombers dropped 30,000lb-each [13,600 kg] bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facilities, totally obliterating everything. No other country on Earth could have done what we did,” Trump said.
While the US president claimed the operation demolished Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity, a US defence assessment later suggested that the strike had only delayed Iran’s nuclear progress by several months.
‘Nobel Peace Prize’
The US president delivered his remarks minutes after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had spoken, denouncing authoritarianism, environmental destruction and inequality, a contrast in tone to Trump’s focus on unilateral strength, nationalism and grievances.
Trump began his speech by taking aim at the teleprompter and a broken escalator that he said he encountered at the UN headquarters, before moving on to paint his administration as overseeing an economic success story in the US.
At several points, Trump returned to his record on foreign policy, claiming to have brought an end to “seven different wars”, and suggesting that his achievements warranted the Nobel Peace Prize. “Everyone says I should get a Nobel Peace Prize for these achievements,” he said before adding that he did not care about awards, only “saving lives”.
Taking a dig at the UN, Trump said the world body was not coming close to living up to its potential. “I had to end wars instead of the United Nations,” he said.
Trump argued that the full-scale invasion Russia launched on Ukraine in 2022 would “never have started if I was president”. He described his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a good one” but said that Moscow’s continuing war was “not making Russia look good”.
He criticised Europe for continuing to buy Russian oil and gas despite sanctions, calling the practice “embarrassing”, and singled out China and India as the “primary funders” of Russia’s war effort.
“Everyone thought Russia would win in three days, but it didn’t,” Trump said while urging European Union nations to impose tariffs on Moscow.
Attacks on immigration and the UN
As the UN grapples with what experts describe as one of the most volatile periods in its 80-year history, Trump used the platform to attack the institution itself, accusing the body of “funding an assault on Western countries and their borders”.
He claimed that the organisation was helping “illegal aliens” enter the US by providing food, shelter, transportation and “debit cards”.
The International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, does provide assistance through disbursement cards and transport programmes, but in coordination with governments, not to facilitate irregular border crossings.
On Europe, Trump warned of what he called an “invasion” of immigrants. and took aim at London Mayor Sadiq Khan, falsely claiming that the Muslim politician wants to impose Islamic law.
The US president characterised migration and renewable energy as the biggest threats to the “free world”. He said some countries were “going to hell” over their border policies, while calling climate change “the greatest con job”.
“In closing, I just want to repeat that immigration and the high cost of so-called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large part of our planet,” he said.
He also renewed attacks on climate policies. and accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of aiding drug smuggling.
Later on Tuesday, Trump is scheduled to meet Guterres as well as leaders from Ukraine, Argentina, the EU, and a group of Middle Eastern and Asian states. He will host a reception for more than 100 world leaders before returning to Washington, DC.