Israel's Netanyahu addresses joint session of US Congress

Amid protests

TEHRAN, (MNA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday delivered a speech to Congress, taking on protesters inside the House chamber and thousands gathered outside the Capitol.

It was his first address to US lawmakers in nearly a decade and the first since the start of the genocidal war of the Zionist regime after Hamas' Oct. 7 operation.

Netanyahu's speech comes at a critical period: The US is in the middle of a chaotic election year, and the Biden administration continues to push negotiators toward a cease-fire agreement that could end the war in Gaza, where more than 39,000 people have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

"My friends, I came to assure you today of one thing: We will win," Netanyahu, standing in the same spot where President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his "Day of Infamy" speech after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Later he added: "For the forces of civilization to triumph, America and Israel must stand together."

The Israeli regime has been waging an unrelenting genocidal war against the Gaza Strip since October 7, responding to al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation staged by the territory’s resistance groups.

The brutal military onslaught has so far claimed the lives of at least 39670 Palestinians, mostly women and children, but has stopped far short of realizing the regime’s goal of ousting the resistance from power in the coastal territory.

Since the onset of the warfare, resistance groups hailing from Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen have also been staging increasingly daring retaliatory attacks against the occupied territories and Israeli interests in support of the war-hit Gazans.

The post incorporated a video depicting some of the attacks.

A post published on the account earlier this week had similarly underlined the Israeli regime’s failure in the face of the regional Axis of Resistance, noting how Tel Aviv was taking the frustration that it was suffering from the defeat out on Palestinian civilians.

The regime was venting the frustration by “dropping bombs on people, schools, hospitals, children, and women,” the post read, denouncing the atrocities as “the worst crimes” that were “being committed before the eyes of the world.”