The main ceremony to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day was held today at the UN General Assembly, in the presence of UN Secretary-General Guterres and General Assembly President Baerbock.
As part of the event, a testimony was given in Hebrew by Holocaust survivor Sara Weinstein for the first time from the assembly's stage.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said at the ceremony: "We remember the six million, but today memory is not enough. While we stand here, Jews are being attacked and hatred is spreading. 'Never again' cannot remain a slogan. It must become action. Now."
The ambassador added: "When antisemitic lies are told in the halls of the UN, they receive an official stamp and turn into violence on the streets. This is not freedom of expression; it is antisemitism."
The Ambassador paid tribute to the IDF soldiers: "IDF soldiers today defend the Jewish people so they can live without fear."
Danon criticized the UN, saying: "Hatred does not spread on its own, it is enabled, it is legitimized, it is given authority, especially over the last two years. This institution, the UN has failed that test."
“Hamas comes with the same hatred and the same intent as the Nazis - to murder Jews," he added. “But unlike 1941, today, there is a different reality. We crashed and stopped Hamas’s terror machine."
Danon also addressed the recovery of the body of Ran Gvili, the last hostage in Gaza, and symbolically removed his hostage pin. “We brought home every hostage. Every single one of them. We waited 843 days. Today, the pin finally comes off," he said.