Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UN General Assembly on Thursday through a prerecorded video after the United States denied him and other senior Palestinian officials visas to attend the annual gathering in person for the second consecutive year.
Speaking from his office in Ramallah, the 90-year-old Palestinian leader said Palestinians would not accept displacement or allow others to determine their future.
“We will not leave our homeland. We will not accept displacement. And we will not allow anyone to decide our future on our behalf,” Abbas said.
Although the plight of Palestinians has featured prominently in speeches by world leaders during the General Assembly session, Abbas called for concrete international action against Israel, particularly over its military operations and the supply of weapons to Israel.
“How long will some countries continue to remain silent about Israel, or continue supplying it with weapons that it uses against our people?” he asked, referring to the destruction and loss of life in Gaza and the West Bank.
Abbas said Palestinians were facing an extremely difficult period, describing widespread destruction of neighborhoods, refugee camps, schools, universities, hospitals and places of worship in Gaza.
He also urged the international community to support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying Palestinians were prepared to live alongside Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to address the General Assembly in person later Thursday. The Israeli delegation's seats in the hall were empty while Abbas delivered his remarks.
Netanyahu has opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state while he remains prime minister and has said the Palestinian Authority is not a partner for peace.
Abbas also criticized the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying efforts to preserve the possibility of a Palestinian state must include protecting the territory on which it would be established.
The Palestinian president said Gaza should not be separated politically from the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the long term. He called for the three areas to be administered under “one state, one government, one law and one legitimate entity authorized to bear arms.”
Abbas has headed the Palestinian Authority since 2005. The authority, established under the 1990s peace agreements with Israel, exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank and depends heavily on international assistance.
The Palestinian Authority lost control of Gaza after Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and seized the territory by force the following year.
Abbas was elected president in 2005 for a four-year term, but no presidential or legislative elections have been held since 2006. In his address, however, he said elections were forthcoming.
During Abbas's tenure, Palestine has been recognized as a state by a majority of UN member states, although the recognition has not ended Israel's decades-long occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
The Palestinians seek those territories as part of a future independent state, while Israel has maintained control over them since the 1967 war. Palestinian authorities and much of the international community regard Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as illegal and an obstacle to establishing a viable Palestinian state.
Abbas recorded the address on Wednesday.