Mohamed SolaimaneAl Mawasi, Gaza - In the sandy hills of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Mohammed Abu Younes mutters angrily as he carries drinking water in plastic jugs to his displaced family.
The 39-year-old former elementary school teacher finds the very idea infuriating and absurd: when and where do Palestinians have the time and inclination to listen to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the UN on Friday?
The Israeli military claimed they broadcast Netanyahu's address through loudspeakers in Gaza, drawing widespread criticism from Palestinians living through a two-year-long genocidal war that has killed more than 65,000 people in the besieged enclave.
Despite Israeli claims, Gaza residents interviewed by TRT World said they heard nothing, only the constant hum of drones, shelling, and the roar of tanks. To many Palestinians, the attempt was not only futile but insulting, an act of psychological warfare divorced from their reality.
In New York, Netanyahu delivered his speech to an almost empty hall after delegates from many countries walked out in protest against the Gaza genocide.
"We've been unable to meet our most basic living needs since our latest displacement five months ago," Abu Younes tells TRT World. "We have neither time to listen nor the mental state to endure more lies and nonsense."
His 35-year-old wife and their four children—aged between 11 and 4—waited three hours that day for a water truck to arrive at their camp north of Khan Younis. Less than 1.5 kilometres away, Israeli tanks rumble, but no voice reached them.
"Palestinians are exhausted to the point where they cannot think about anything other than surviving death and moving from one place to another," he adds.
His sentiments reflect a broader reality across Gaza, where the struggle for water, shelter, and safety overshadows political messaging.
On Gaza's coastal road, Mohammed al-Aqqad sits beside his small stall selling cans of tahini, sugar, and salt.
The 49-year-old father of seven accidentally heard fragments of Netanyahu's speech while searching for news on his mobile radio, recognising the speaker only through what he calls "the magnitude of lies and arrogance he spoke with, indifferent to his genocide of an entire people in Gaza".
Al-Aqqad, displaced for the sixth time since mid-May from eastern Khan Younis, says Gaza residents have lost hope in all political speeches and positions that have failed to stop the genocide approaching its third year.
Daily struggles override political theatre
The contrast between Netanyahu's attempt at direct communication and Gaza's harsh reality becomes stark when examining residents' daily concerns.
Abu Musab, a 63-year-old grandfather carrying his grandchild while searching for water, interrupts conversations about Netanyahu's speech with exasperated sarcasm.
"We can't find a cup of water, we can't find a bathroom, we can't find a place for a tent. Who is Netanyahu and whose speech?" he says.
"You talk about Netanyahu's speech—what speech will return to us the Gaza that this criminal and his army erased?" he adds, describing the Israeli broadcast as a "disgusting initiative” of a “demented state with insane leadership".
Palestinian analysts described Netanyahu’s loudspeaker gambit as “megalomania” and “failed showmanship,” an effort to manufacture an audience after being abandoned on the world stage.
"Undoubtedly, Netanyahu suffers from megalomania and carries a psychopathic personality. He will remain ostracised and a war criminal forever. Some may see this behaviour as insane, but he wants to establish his narrative and justify the genocide war before the world under the pretext of his prisoners in Gaza," author Sami al-Ansi posted on social media.
It’s part of his plan to try to change Israel’s murderous image among Palestinians, suggests Tawfiq Abu Jarad, a media professor at Gaza University. “[But] people here live the reality of killing, genocide, starvation, and destruction—no speeches or broadcasts can alter that.”
While Netanyahu aims for psychological warfare against Palestinians, but fails to realise—or was misled by advisers—that Palestinians have reached a stage where such methods no longer affect them because daily struggles have taken control and reached their peak, political analyst Said Abu Rahma tells TRT World.
"...Continuous bombardment, the drone of reconnaissance aircraft, transport trucks and vehicles….the 24-hour continuous noise doesn't allow us to hear anything else," he adds.
As Abu Rahma highlights how daily survival has rendered Netanyahu’s tactics ineffective, Abu Jarad underscores their absurdity, “A failed, delusional showmanship step,” he says, describing the loudspeaker broadcast.
“This confirms the occupation's failure to change its criminal, murderous image among Palestinians, as Gaza residents live the reality of killing, genocide, starvation, and destruction that no messages or speeches can change,” he adds.
The media professor, currently engaged in extending a 400-metre water line to reach his displacement camp in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, emphasises that all Gaza residents face daily concerns much larger than any speeches, whether Netanyahu's or others.
Symbolic and strategic dimensions
Political analyst Taysir Abdullah tells TRT World the Israeli leader’s speech carried three dimensions.
"A symbolic dimension expressing Netanyahu's leadership of historical revenge against their enemies, as the Nazis did with Jews, gathering them in narrow places then delivering instructions and speeches through loudspeakers."
The second dimension, according to Abdullah, signals military occupation over entire Gaza and the ability to deliver his voice through military force everywhere within it.
The third dimension relates to another political and diplomatic message: Israel wanted to use the UN General Assembly stage to show the world that its army supposedly communicates responsibly with Palestinians, like when they claim to issue notice before carrying out military offensives.
In reality, Palestinians and analysts dismiss this as propaganda, noting that such claims are false and meant only to sanitise Israel’s image internationally.
Analyst Abu Rahma adds that Netanyahu's speech exposed "a large gap between Israeli political discourse and accelerating regional and international changes.” He calls it a reflection of denial, as more nations move to recognise Palestine and Israel finds itself increasingly isolated.
As delegates walked out of the UN hall, the contrast was clear: a leader shouting into emptiness abroad, and a failed attempt to impose his words on a population at home too consumed with survival to listen.
Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes continued across Gaza — medical sources say at least 60 Palestinians were killed in the latest bombardments, underscoring the deadly backdrop against which these messages are broadcast.
The failed attempt at direct communication through loudspeakers underscores the broader challenge facing Israeli leadership in justifying its actions to the international audience.
This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.
