Iran and Israel each appealed to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to strongly condemn the other for recent deadly attacks. The council called for calm in a region it fears is sliding toward a wider war.
“The Security Council should take immediate steps to hold Israel accountable for this act of aggression,” Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told an emergency meeting of the council, which his government requested following the early-morning assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
“This includes considering the imposition of sanctions and other measures that are necessary to prevent further violations and to signal that Israeli malevolent activities will not be tolerated by the international community,” Iravani said.
Iran and Hamas blame Israel for the airstrike that killed the Hamas leader, who was in Iran attending the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel has not claimed the attack but is widely presumed to have carried it out.
Israeli officials, however, were quick to take responsibility for an airstrike on Tuesday in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur. Israel said Shukur was responsible for a rocket attack Saturday in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 Arab Druze children playing on a soccer field. Hezbollah has denied responsibility.
“This operation sends a clear message: We will defend ourselves and respond with great force against those who harm us,” Israeli Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Miller told the council.
He urged the council to hold Iran accountable with new sanctions. Iran funds and arms both Hamas and Hezbollah.
Lebanon: We don't want war
The spate of strikes has raised regional tensions that are boiling because of the war in Gaza.
Lebanon’s charge d'affaires said Israel is seeking to drag the region into a wider war with disastrous consequences.
“We have said it before and we reiterate today: Lebanon and the people of Lebanon and the government of Lebanon do not want war,” Hadi Hachem said.
He said seven people were killed, including a woman and two children, and 78 were injured on Tuesday in the Israeli strike on a densely populated Beirut neighborhood.
“Lebanon believes that this aggression is the most dangerous chapter of the conflict so far,” Hachem said.
Council members called for restraint, and several urged an investigation of the attacks.
“We believe that the Security Council should pronounce itself on this situation, if only to call for de-escalation and the pursuit of diplomacy and dialogue,” Slovenian Ambassador Samuel Zbogar said.
U.S. envoy Robert Wood said Washington was not involved with Israel’s strike on the Hezbollah leader and was not aware of or involved in the targeting of the Hamas official, saying that “we have no independent confirmation as to Hamas’ claims regarding his death.”
He said the United States would continue to lead diplomatic efforts to end the war in Gaza, reduce regional tensions and prevent a wider war.
“A broader war is neither imminent nor inevitable, although the opportunistic attacks by Iran and its network of terrorist proxies and partners across the region have repeatedly brought us closer to a regional conflict,” he said, adding that Israel has a right to defend itself.
In a statement Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the attacks in Beirut and Tehran “represent a dangerous escalation.” He urged that all efforts be focused on achieving a cease-fire for the Gaza Strip and returning calm to the border between Lebanon and Israel.
“Rather than that, what we are seeing are efforts to undermine these goals,” he said.
