Gaza civil defence says Israeli forces killed 20 people Friday ahead of Netanyahu\u2019s UN speech in New York
\n new york
\nIsraeli 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.
\nDelegates were called to order as Netanyahu began his speech, the first of the day at the annual General Assembly.
\nNetanyahu said his country has \u201ccrushed the bulk\u201d of armed Palestinian group Hamas\u2019s \u201cterror machine\u201d and sought to finish the job \u201cas fast as possible.\u201d
\nNetanyahu celebrated what he said was a series of Israeli strategic victories in the past year that also included targeting Iran\u2019s nuclear program and assassinating the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.
\nMore deaths in Gaza
\nIn 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\u2019s speech at the United Nations in New York.
\nIt comes as the Israeli military presses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City, from which hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee.
\nThe civil defence agency \u2014 a rescue force operating under Hamas authority \u2014 reported at least 22 people killed since dawn across the territory, including 11 in Gaza City.
\nIsrael\u2019s military said in a statement Friday that the air force had over the past day \u201cstruck over 140 targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including terrorists, tunnel shafts (and) military infrastructure\u201d.
\nBuildings 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.
\nThe 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.
\nUN rights chief Volker Turk has condemned as a war crime Israel\u2019s policy of settlements on Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank.
\nBig 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.
\nThe UN rights office report called on companies to \u201ctake appropriate action to address the adverse human rights impacts\u201d of their activities.
\nThe 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.
\nUN rights chief Volker Turk has condemned as a war crime Israel\u2019s policy of settlements on Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank.
\nBig 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.
\nThe UN rights office report called on companies to \u201ctake appropriate action to address the adverse human rights impacts\u201d of their activities.
\n\u201cWhere 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,\u201d it stressed.
\nTurk said in a statement: \u201cThis report underscores the due diligence responsibility of businesses working in contexts of conflict to ensure their activities do not contribute to human rights abuses.\u201d
\nMostly Israeli firms
\nThe list was first produced by the UN human rights office in 2020 amid harsh Israeli criticism.
\nIt 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.
\nThe 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.
\nIt has stressed that listing companies in the database was \u201cnot, and does not purport to be, a judicial or quasi-judicial process\u201d.
\nDespite a requirement for the database to be updated annually, it has been revised just once before.
\nThat was in 2023, when only the 112 firms that had figured on the original list were reviewed.
\nFifteen of them were removed for various reasons, leaving 97.
\nFriday\u2019s release marks the first update that includes fresh names.
\n\u201cA 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,\u201d the rights office said.
\nContentious
\nThe 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.
\nFor 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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