The United Nations Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting Monday to discuss the situation in the Middle East following Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Iran.
Council president Switzerland said Iran requested the meeting with the support of Algeria, China and Russia.
“Israeli regime's actions constitute a grave threat to international peace and security and further destabilize an already fragile region," Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a letter to the 15-member council on Saturday.
The early Saturday attack included several waves of strikes from Israeli jets targeting Iranian missile factories. It came weeks after Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel amid Israel’s wars with Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the Israeli strikes "should not be exaggerated nor downplayed," while stopping short of calling for retaliation. It was Israel's first open attack on its archenemy.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the attacks achieved Israel’s goals, including harming Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles.
Ahead of Monday’s council meeting, Iraq submitted a complaint to the U.N. complaining of Israel’s use of Iraqi airspace in the attack against Iran.
An Iraqi government spokesperson said the letter condemns Israel’s violation of Iraq’s airspace and its sovereignty.
Israeli forces carried out fresh airstrikes Monday in southern Lebanon where health officials said at least five people were killed in the city of Tyre.
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Sunday proposed a two-day cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, that would include the militant group freeing four hostages during the halt in fighting.
Neither Israel nor Hamas offered any immediate response to el-Sissi’s plan, the first he has proposed during months of playing a role, along with the United States and Qatar, in trying to broker a halt to fighting.
Israel said Monday that David Barnea, the head of the Mossad spy agency, had returned from talks in Doha with his U.S. CIA counterpart, William Burns, and the Qatari premier, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, where they discussed a new "framework" for a Gaza hostage release deal.
"During the meeting, the parties discussed a new unified framework that combines previous proposals and also takes into account key issues and recent developments in the region,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. "In the coming days, discussions will continue between the mediators and Hamas to assess the feasibility of talks and to further efforts to promote a deal."
U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters Monday at the White House, “We need a cease-fire. This war should end.”
Hamas and Hezbollah are U.S.-designated terror groups.
The latest conflict in the region began when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and captured about 250 hostages in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Israel says it believes Hamas is still holding 101 hostages, including 35 the military says are dead.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed nearly 43,000 Palestinians, according to the territory's health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
