Iran on Saturday urged the United Nations Security Council to meet over Israel’s actions in Lebanon and across the region. According to a Reuters report, following the assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike, Iran’s UN ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani wrote a letter to the 15-member body.
Iravani called on the Council to “take immediate and decisive action to stop Israel’s ongoing aggression and prevent [it]… from dragging the region into full-scale war”, as per AFP.
Iran “strongly warns against any attack” on its diplomatic premises and representatives, the letter said, with Iravani emphasising “the foundational principle of the inviolability” of diplomatic and consular premises. He reiterated that Iran will not “tolerate any repeat of such aggression”, Reuters reported.
“Iran will not hesitate to exercise its inherent rights under international law to take every measure in defence of its vital national and security interests,” he said, reported the news agency.
On Saturday, Hezbollah confirmed the death of Hassan Nasrallah, one of its founding members, in an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of Beirut. The killing of Nasrallah — longtime leader of the militant group — sent shockwaves throughout Lebanon and the Middle East, where he has been a dominant political and military figure for more than three decades, according to the Associated Press.
Hezbollah is backed by Iran, Israel’s chief regional rival. The Israeli military said it carried out a precise airstrike on Friday while Hezbollah leaders were meeting at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut. The ongoing Israel-Hezbollah exchange of fire, a fallout of the Gaza war, has intensified concerns about the battle conflagrating into a wider regional war.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel’s policy of “massacring the people in Lebanon” was “short-sighted and stupid”. He stressed that the “Zionist criminals” were “far too weak to inflict damage on Hezbollah”. He also urged Muslims to stand with the people of Lebanon and its military group Hezbollah against the “malicious Zionist regime”.
“The Zionist criminals need to know that they are far too weak to be able to inflict any significant damage on the solid structure of Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” he said in his statement that was posted on X. “It is an obligation for all Muslims to stand with the people of Lebanon and the honorable Hezbollah, offering their resources and assistance as Hezbollah confronts the usurping, cruel, malicious Zionist regime,” he added.
