Speak­ing over video af­ter the Unit­ed States re­voked his visa, the Pales­tin­ian leader told world lead­ers Thurs­day that his peo­ple re­ject the 2023 Hamas at­tack on Is­rael and pledged that the mil­i­tant group would have no role in gov­ern­ing the Gaza Strip af­ter war ends and must hand over its weapons to his ad­min­is­tra­tion. Said Mah­moud Ab­bas to his peo­ple: “The dawn of free­dom will emerge.”

Ab­bas told the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly that Pales­tini­ans in Gaza “have been fac­ing a war of geno­cide, de­struc­tion, star­va­tion and dis­place­ment” by Is­rael. His speech came as Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu heads to New York to give his own ad­dress in per­son on Fri­day.

In a short but res­olute speech, Ab­bas lay out his con­tin­ued vi­sion for a Pales­tin­ian state in the West Bank and Gaza along­side Is­rael. That two-state so­lu­tion has gained trac­tion af­ter a string of coun­tries – in­clud­ing top U.S. al­lies -- an­nounced recog­ni­tion of a Pales­tin­ian state this past week.