Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, delivering prerecorded remarks from his office in Ramallah after the United States denied him and other top Palestinian officials visas to attend the gathering for the second year in a row.
“The Palestinian people face one of the most dangerous times in its history,” Abbas said, citing long-term military occupation in the West Bank and the war in Gaza. Israel, he said, “has targeted all of the basic necessities of life.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak in person early in the afternoon. As Abbas spoke, the Israeli delegations' seats in the General Assembly hall sat vacant.
In his speech, Abbas once again implored the international community to take more vigorous action and speak out more loudly against Israel.
“How much longer will some states continue to remain silent against Israel or supply it with the weapons it uses against our people? The world has witnessed the tremendous cost in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” Abbas said. He added: “What is the international community waiting for in order to protect the Palestinian people?”
Though negotiations have not taken place for years, Abbas urged the international community to push for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu has said no Palestinian state will be established while he is Israel’s leader and has argued that the Palestinian Authority is not a partner for peace.
The international community has backed Trump’s plan for a group of apolitical administrators to govern Gaza under the Board of Peace. But Abbas said the territory could not remain politically separate from the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the long term.
He said the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank needed to be governed by “one state, one government, one law and one legitimate entity authorized to bear arms.”
Since 2005, the now-90-year-old Abbas has led the Palestinian Authority, which is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. But his support among Palestinians has withered during years of corruption and the sometimes violent advance of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Under Abbas, Palestine has been recognized as a country by a majority of U.N. member states. But on the ground in the West Bank, the mostly symbolic moves have not affected Israel’s decades long military occupation. Throughout the war in Gaza, Abbas and the authority have been largely sidelined from negotiations over its future in favor of a transition process shepherded by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.
The Palestinian Authority was created under a series of peace agreements with Israel in the 1990s and administers semiautonomous areas of the West Bank, while relying heavily on foreign aid. It is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people.
It was ousted from Gaza after Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and violently seized control. Abbas was elected to what was supposed to be a four-year term in 2005. The authority has not held presidential or legislative elections since 2006.
Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want both as part of their future state. The Palestinians and much of the international community view the settlements as illegal and as an obstacle to creating a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.
Abbas recorded the video on Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Likud party New Year event in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Chairs for delegates from the state of Israel are unoccupied as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks via pre-recorded video during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks via pre-recorded video after being denied a visa to attend in person during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — American football will make its debut in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at a futebol cathedral.
The 78,000-seat Maracana Stadium is a revered soccer venue that has hosted two World Cup championship games, Olympic gold medal matches for men and women, and numerous clashes between South America's biggest teams. Now the Baltimore Ravens and the Dallas Cowboys will play the NFL’s first game in Rio there, one of a record nine international contests on the league schedule this season.
Built for the 1950 World Cup, the Mário Filho Stadium in the northern end of the city is universally known as the Maracana due to the river that flows behind it. Locals have nicknamed it “the Maraca” and its current tenants are Brazilian soccer club giants Flamengo and Fluminense.
"It makes perfect sense for the NFL, reinforcing our commitment to Brazil. Hosting a game at the Maracana will be historic, capitalizing on everything Rio has to offer to locals, Brazilians, international visitors and the NFL,” Luis Martinez, general manager of NFL Brazil, told The Associated Press.
The NFL has been playing in Brazil since 2024, but the two previous games were at the 48,000-seat NeoQuimica Arena in Sao Paulo, a larger market where both games were sellouts. Some tickets remain for Sunday's game in the considerably larger venue. The stadium made news this week after some soccer players raised concerns about the field conditions, though the NFL says it's confident the playing surface will be fine.
The stadium opened in 1950 to host the World Cup, the first after World War II and at a time when Rio was Brazil's capital. The government had hopes it would help Brazil’s national team win the championship.
Instead, Uruguay lifted the trophy in front of 200,000 fans after a 2-1 win over the hosts on July 16, 1950.
"Only three people have silenced the Maracana; the pope, Frank Sinatra and me,” Alcides Ghiggia, the Uruguayan striker who netted the winning goal, said repeatedly in different interviews over the decades until he died in 2015.
Ghiggia is deemed the main player responsible for the historic upset that fans know as “the Maracanazo.”
Brazilians had to wait another eight years to win the World Cup title for the first time, and would add another four years later.
The Maracana also saw the goal that three-time World Cup winner Pelé said was his 1,000th. He scored during Santos' 2-1 victory against Vasco da Gama and wept for joy in front of the cameras and 70,000 people. FIFA has a different goal count for the football great, who died in 2022 at age 82.
Ghiggia’s often repeated references to Pope John Paul II and Sinatra were about other memorable events at the stadium.
Sinatra performed at the Maracana in 1980 for an estimated crowd of 175,000.
When he forgot the lyrics to “Strangers in the Night,” the fans continued.
“This is the greatest moment I’ve ever experienced in my life as a professional singer,” Sinatra said near the end of his performance. “Never before have I experienced anything like this before, never.”
Other stars including Madonna and the Rolling Stones have also performed at the stadium.
The pontiff was at the stadium in 1980 and 1997 during two of his three official visits to Brazil. After the first one, Fluminense fans began displaying banners with his face as a good-luck charm. They also sing “Bless us, John of God” during their most hotly contested matches.
Other big events have included a 1951 visit from the Harlem Globetrotters that drew 50,000 fans and a fight the same year between legendary Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter Helio Gracie and Masahiko Kimura, deemed by many judokas as the best ever from Japan. Kimura broke Gracie's arm and won after his rival's coach threw in the towel.
The stadium capacity was reduced to less than 100,000 during a remodel ahead of the 2014 World Cup — old standing areas and tiered concrete benches were removed — but it remains one of the largest in South America.
Business consultant Rafael Salies, a hardcore Flamengo fan who spent part of his childhood in Oklahoma, is excited about the NFL coming to the Maracana but he won't attend. A fan of the Miami Dolphins who used to play football on the Rio beaches, he said $100 is pricey to watch the Ravens face the Cowboys.
But he is also keen to spend more than $1,500 to go to Uruguay in November if his team reaches the final of the Copa Libertadores, which is the main club competition in South American soccer.
“This game in Rio is more about the stadium than the city. It might look a little empty in some parts because it is just too big, but it will be a beautiful scenario,” Salies said. “There will be some soccer stadium culture involved, but there won't be fireworks, flags, drum sections. It will be a different Maracana.”
FILE - A general view of the Maracana stadium during its renovation ahead of the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, May 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
FILE - Pope John Paul II waves to worshippers as he arrives to Rio de Janeiro's Maracana Stadium on Oct. 4, 1997. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez Mills, File)
FILE - Germany's head coach Joachim Loew celebrates after the World Cup final soccer match between Germany and Argentina, July 13, 2014, at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
