According to the UN’s official record of the debate and Middle East Eye, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the general debate of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) saying that “generations of Palestinians will carry the pain and trauma left by the genocide of women and children perpetrated by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Gaza.” In the same speech, on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, Lula said that “Israeli civilians paid the price for the radicalism and intolerance of Hamas’ terrorist acts” and that illegal settlements in the West Bank are making a two-state solution increasingly unviable, according to The New Republic.

He criticised the persecution of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its members and said that the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, must not be “silenced for telling the truth,” according to Al Jazeera, The New Republic and Israel Hayom.