Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, holding up large photographs of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, assassinated in February 2026, and of children killed in a US strike on a school in Minab. "The US president described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism," Pezeshkian said, directly rebutting President Donald Trump's address from the same podium roughly 24 hours earlier.
As Pezeshkian spoke, the US delegation's seats emptied, according to live coverage from The Guardian. The Israeli delegation's seats were also shown empty. It marks what would be the first time a leader of a country actively at war with the United States has addressed the UN General Assembly from American soil.
What happened in the chamber
Pezeshkian named Trump directly toward the end of his address: "Yes they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee." CNN reported he also declared "We will never bow our head" to Trump. He rejected the "terrorist" framing Trump used a day earlier, per BBC, when Trump told delegates Iran faced "potential greatness or obliteration." As Crisis.zone reported, Pezeshkian did not enter the hall for that speech; other Iranian delegates walked out as Trump discussed military strikes.
Pezeshkian also warned Tehran would not allow any country to use the Strait of Hormuz to "impose their aggressions upon us," per Al Jazeera. Commercial shipping through the waterway remains below prewar levels.
Observers are reading: how Iran's domestic hardline pressure and its Qatari-mediated negotiating conditions shape what Pezeshkian can concede.
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What the photographs represented
The images Pezeshkian displayed referenced the February 28, 2026 strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, which Crisis.zone reported at the time killed at least 165 people, mostly children. The UN's Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran concluded on September 18 that US forces committed war crimes there, as Crisis.zone documented, while finding Iranian authorities separately committed crimes against humanity in crushing protests. Pezeshkian's speech was theatre and negotiating tactic at once, delivered to a chamber whose host government his own delegation was simultaneously bargaining with down the hall.
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