Netanyahu took unusual long flight to NY to give UN speech that was blared over Gaza: report

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took an unusually long flight to New York to avoid being arrested by countries where he is wanted for war crimes, according to a report.

Netanyahu flew to the Big Apple for his United Nation’s speech Friday — which he has reportedly ordered to be blared on loudspeakers across the Gaza Strip.

The prime minister’s aircraft, Wing of Zion, took a lengthy detour to avoid flying over France and Spain, data from Flight Tracker shows.

Both European countries are members of the International Criminal Court, which issued a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest in November 2024, according to The Times of Israel.

“Few things illustrate how Netanyahu has navigated Israel to diplomatic isolation than the route his plane (without journalists) is taking this morning en route to New York, carefully threading its way to avoid flying over countries where he may be arrested on an ICC warrant,” Anshel Pfeffer, Netanyahu’s biographer and a correspondent for The Economist, posted on social media.

Yanir Cozin, a correspondent with Israel’s army radio, wrote in a post that the route was “to avoid a situation where an emergency landing would be required in a country that would enforce the arrest warrants of the International Court.”

Netanyahu has reportedly ordered the IDF to blast his remarks to the UN General Assembly in Gaza, which two Israel officials told CNN is intended to address citizens there rather than Hamas.

His speech comes at a tense time for Israel as several Western nations — including the UK, France, and Canada — formally declared their recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN earlier this week, further isolating Israel more than 2 years into its war with Hamas.

At a government meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu reportedly vowed to fight back “against the slanderous propaganda aimed at us,” by international organizations calling for establishing a Palestinian state that he claimed “will endanger our existence and constitute an absurd prize for terrorism.”