Portugal

Lisbon, September 25, 2026. The Portuguese press first retains the image of the emptying room: according to Observador, about 77 delegations left the UN General Assembly before Benyamin Netanyahu even took the floor on Thursday. The Israeli Prime Minister responded with a challenge: "If there are still moral cowards who have not left the room, let them do so now." He then qualified the accusation of genocide against Israel as "the greatest lie of the century", stating that destroying Iranian nuclear facilities had been difficult, but "one of the easiest decisions" of his term, adding: "If I hadn't done it, we would all be dead." SAPO notes that he also hailed Donald Trump as "the greatest partner" of Israel, and accused Qatar of spending billions to try to turn young people against Israel and the United States.

The most detailed response reported by the Portuguese media comes from Ankara. RTP reports that the Turkish government's communications director, Burhanettin Duran, deemed Netanyahu's attacks on Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he called a "tyrant", unfounded: according to Duran, they cannot "make us forget the massacres, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the procedures initiated under international law". Netanyahu had accused Turkey of spreading "anti-Semitic lies", of illegally occupying northern Cyprus, of violating Greece's rights, and of wanting to govern Jerusalem, ensuring: "This is not your country, it's ours."

Outside, Observador counts over a hundred arrests during pro-Palestinian demonstrations in front of the UN headquarters in New York, including actresses Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder, and Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier. A Jewish Voice for Peace official, quoted via Al Jazeera, called Netanyahu the "architect of genocide" in Gaza.

The speech comes just a few weeks before the Israeli legislative elections, but Portuguese articles retain above all the open fracture between Israel, Turkey, and Qatar, more than the internal electoral issue or the pending procedure before international justice.