Ofer Bronchtein was brought to tears as French President Emmanuel Macron delivered his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, recognizing a Palestinian state for the first time.
"Honestly, I cried," he told NPR in an interview in his Paris apartment after his return from New York. "I see it happening in front of me and I see the full room of the General Assembly and everyone is applauding."
Bronchtein says his only regret is that the Israeli delegation walked out of the General Assembly. The Israeli and U.S. governments opposed the move. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said world leaders who recognized Palestinian statehood were granting a "tremendous reward" to the Palestinian militant group Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.
Bronchtein refutes this, arguing it is no reward for a group that never sought a peaceful coexistence alongside Israel.
"I strongly believe that if there had been a Palestinian state before the 7th of October, if the Palestinians had been sovereign to run their lives as they wanted, the 7th of October [attack in Israel] would not have happened," he says.
International Glance
At least 67 Palestinian children have been killed in the Gaza Strip since a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement came into effect last month, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says.
The Israeli military carried out one of the deadliest attacks on Gaza since the “ceasefire” took effect last month, killing over 30 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, and wounding dozens more in a series of airstrikes late Wednesday and early Thursday. The dead and wounded arrived at hospitals in an endless stream, children were covered in dust and blood, men carried small bodies wrapped in shrouds, and wails of grief rose in the air





























