Where can I see video of the UNGA walking out? Who is telling the truth? How do we know who is right?

Where to watch

Benjamin Netanyahu UNGA Speech 2026 — Walkouts During Israel PM Address (YouTube)

That stream shows the full speech and the departures in real time. CNN also covered the walkout live, reporting that groups of diplomats walked out of the UN General Assembly as Netanyahu began his speech. The UN's own stream is at UN Web TV, where the session is archived.

Who is telling the truth

Both sides are telling a version of the truth, and both are leaving something out.

Israel published its own count of which seats were empty: 77 delegations were either absent from the hall or left at the start of Netanyahu's remarks. That number is real. But Israeli officials themselves noted that not all absences were boycotts. In some cases, representatives simply did not attend the morning session, where Netanyahu was the first scheduled speaker.

Jordan and Egypt, for instance, did not take their seats but did not join the staged protest. Pakistan's delegation walked out in protest but then stood at the sidelines to listen to the speech. So the figure of 77 bundles together deliberate political statements and ordinary scheduling gaps.

The Palestinian Mission to the UN had sent a message to many of the 193 member nations asking them to bring as many staff as possible to the hall and collectively walk out once Netanyahu was announced. That is an organized diplomatic action, not a spontaneous one, and knowing it was coordinated matters when you assess what it means.

By contrast, envoys from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, both signatories to the 2020 Abraham Accords, remained in their seats despite ongoing strains over the war in Gaza.

How to know what is right

Three things help you cut through it.

First, watch the UN's own archived feed. The camera does not editorialize. You can see which seats were empty and when people left.

Second, read the count with the asterisk. According to Israeli reports, 77 countries were absent during Netanyahu's speech, but several delegations walked out shortly before he took the podium while representatives of other countries had not been in their seats from the outset. "Absent" and "walked out in protest" are not the same thing, and the 77 figure conflates both.

The walkout was real and large. Its precise meaning, protest versus scheduling, isolation versus coordination, depends on which seats you are counting and why.