TEHRAN: Iran’s United Nations mission said Saturday that Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, armed and financed by Tehran, was behind a drone attack on the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“This action was taken by the Lebanese Hezbollah,” the mission said in response to a question about Iran’s role in the attack, according to the official IRNA news agency.
Earlier Saturday, Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of trying to kill him after his office said a drone from Lebanon had hit the premier’s family home.
The Tehran-backed militant group, which fights Israel in Lebanon’s south, has not yet acknowledged the attack.
“The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Addressing “Iran and its proxies,” Netanyahu vowed that “anyone who tries to harm Israel’s citizens will pay a heavy price.”
The spokesman of Iran’s foreign ministry, Esmaeil Baghaei also slammed Israel for “spreading lies” as its “current and permanent practice of this regime and its criminal leaders” in regards to the accusations against Iran, according to IRNA.
Iran-aligned armed groups, known as the “axis of resistance” that includes Hezbollah, have been drawn into the Israel-Hamas war, which has raged in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Tehran has also launched two direct attacks on arch-foe Israel during the war, most recently a barrage of 200 missiles on October 1, for which Israel has vowed to retaliate.
Iran has said it will strike back if Israel attacks.
Iran says Hezbollah behind drone attack on Netanyahu’s residence
https://arab.news/zercs
Iran says Hezbollah behind drone attack on Netanyahu’s residence
- “This action was taken by the Lebanese Hezbollah,” the mission said in response to a question about Iran’s role in the attack
- The Tehran-backed militant group, which fights Israel in Lebanon’s south, has not yet acknowledged the attack
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
