Tiny key pin on Palestinian president's suit at UN angers Israel

Israel has criticised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after he appeared wearing a small lapel pin in the shape of a key during his recorded speech at the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

For Palestinians, the key is a historic symbol of the mass displacement of 1948 and reflects the demand for the “Right of Return” to their ancestral lands. The emblem recalls families who fled with house keys in hand, hoping one day to return to their homes.

Israel, however, denounced the gesture, calling it “an unmistakable symbol” of efforts to erase Israel. The country’s foreign ministry wrote on X that Abbas’s choice of pin was not about peace but about rejectionism.

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“It is long overdue for Arab states to grant citizenship to the descendants of those who left in 1948. Abbas’s ‘key’ is the old PLO plan: two states for one Palestinian people and the destruction of the Jewish State. This will not happen,” the ministry said in its post.

The statement also urged Arab countries hosting Palestinians to naturalise them, reiterating Israel’s refusal to recognise the Palestinian right of return.

In his address, Abbas called for Hamas to be disarmed, for an end to the current conflict, and for a durable peace that would allow Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side.