NEW YORK: The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on Sunday afternoon in New York to discuss Iran’s attack on Israel.
Iran on Saturday launched dozens of drones and missiles at Israel in a retaliatory attack after an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed seven revolutionary guards, including two generals. Iran had warned that Israel would be “punished” for the strike, which took place on April 1.
The Security Council meeting was requested by Israel’s permanent representative to the UN to “unequivocally condemn Iran for these grave violations and immediately act to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.”
In a letter to the Maltese ambassador, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the council for April, Gilad Erdan called the attack “a severe and dangerous escalation,” adding that the gravity and volume of the attacks were unprecedented, and a flagrant violation of Israel’s sovereignty, of international law, and of a Security Council resolution.
“Iran poses a direct threat to international peace, and brazenly violates the UN charter and security council resolutions. The time has come for the Security Council to take concrete action against the Iranian threat,” Erdan said.
Iran’s permanent mission to the UN had posted on X that “had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated.”
The mission described Saturday’s attacks as “an invocation of Article 51 of the UN Charter,” which invokes the “inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
It said that the retaliatory attacks occurred following a 13-day period marked by the Security Council’s “inaction and silence, coupled with its failure to condemn the Israeli regime’s aggressions. Certain countries’ precipitous condemnation of Iran’s exercise of its legitimate right suggests a reversal of roles, equating the victim with the criminal.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned “the serious escalation represented by the large-scale attack launched on Israel by the Islamic Republic of Iran this evening,” and called for an immediate cessation of such hostilities. He said that neither the region nor the world could afford another war.
“I am deeply alarmed about the very real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation,” said the UN chief in a statement as he urged “all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid any action that could lead to major military confrontations on multiple fronts in the Middle East.”
