The countries of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) condemned the assassination of the political head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Iran and called for the intensification of diplomatic efforts to avoid an all-out war in the Middle East.
Wednesday’s emergency UN Security Council meeting came as Iran and Hamas – the Palestinian group that governs the war-torn Gaza Strip – blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s death and vowed to seek revenge. Israel has not admitted responsibility for the Tehran attack.
Haniyeh’s assassination came less than 24 hours after Israel killed Hezbollah’s most senior military commander, Fuad Shukr, in an airstrike on the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Israel claimed the attack was in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children and young people from the Druze Arab community in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
At the UN Security Council meeting, Palestine said the global community must stop Israel from dragging the Middle East into the “abyss”, while China, Russia and Algeria condemned Haniyeh’s murder. The United States, the United Kingdom and France raised what they said was Iranian support for destabilizing actors in the region, while Japan said it feared an all-out war in the Middle East.
“Israel has been the oppressor, tormentor and murderer of Palestinians for decades and is the long-time destabilizer of our region,” said Feda Abdelhady Nasser, deputy permanent observer for the State of Palestine at the UN. “It must stop,” she said, while calling for accountability for Haniyeh’s murder, as well as for “the murder and wounding of more than 130,000 Palestinian children, women and men over these past 300 days of horror and hell in Gaza.”
“The international community has a choice to make,” she added. “May it be for peace and security. Don’t let Israel drag us all into the abyss.”
Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said Tehran has consistently exercised maximum restraint but reserved the right to respond decisively to Haniyeh’s assassination. He called on the Security Council to condemn Israel and punish it with sanctions.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its inherent right to self-defense, in accordance with international law, to respond decisively to this terrorist and criminal act when it deems it necessary and appropriate,” Iravani said. “This act of terror is another manifestation of Israel’s decades-long pattern of terrorism and sabotage, targeting Palestinians and other supporters of the Palestinian cause across the region and beyond,” he said.
Iravani went on to blame the US, as well as “warmongering leaders” in Israel, for Haniyeh’s death.
“The responsibility of the United States as a strategic ally and main supporter of the Israeli regime in the region cannot be ignored in this horrible crime. This act could not [have] occurred without authorization and support from US intelligence,” Iravani said.
Ceasefire negotiations in Gaza
The US, however, denied any knowledge of the attack and said a wider war was neither imminent nor inevitable. Robert Wood, deputy US ambassador to the UN, also called on members with influence over Iran “to increase pressure on the country to stop the escalation of its proxy conflict against Israel and other actors”.
Meanwhile, Israel urged the UN Security Council to condemn Iran for what it called its support for regional “terrorism” and to increase sanctions against Tehran. Jonathan Miller, Israel’s deputy representative to the UN, also denounced what he called a lack of condemnation of Hezbollah for the killings in the town of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights. The Lebanese group denied involvement in the attack.
“We will defend ourselves and respond with great force against those who harm us,” Miller said, calling on the world to support Israel.
Syria, from where Israel seized the Golan Heights in 1967, also spoke at the meeting, rejecting as “lies” Israeli claims that the rocket attack on Majdal Shams targeted the Israeli population. Syria’s ambassador, Koussay al-Dahhak, noted that the territory is Syrian and accused Israel of “arranging” the attack on the Druze community “to continue its aggression against the states in the region”.
Lebanon also disputed Israel’s claim that its actions in the region were acts of self-defense.
“Israel’s claim that it seeks to protect the population it occupies is a demonstration of hypocrisy,” said Hadi Hachem, UN Chargé d’Affaires for Lebanon. “Israel’s true objective is to prolong and intensify hostilities. And it is ironic that the killer of tens of thousands of children in Gaza sheds tears for the children of the occupied Syrian Golan.”
Hachem also warned the UNSC that a conflict in the Middle East would have global repercussions.
“What starts in the Middle East will spread throughout the world,” he said.
Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the UN, said the failure to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza was responsible for worsening tensions.
He called on “countries with great influence” to put out the flames of war in the Palestinian enclave.
He went on to describe Haniyeh’s assassination as “a blatant attempt to sabotage peace efforts” and called on Israel “to suspend all its military operations in Gaza and to immediately stop the collective punishment of the people of Gaza.”
Russia also described Haniyeh’s killing as “a serious blow” to truce talks, while Shino Mitsuko, Japan’s deputy representative to the UN, said: “We fear that the region is on the brink of an all-out war” and called on intensified international efforts to avoid such conflict.
France and the United Kingdom also called for restraint, with London’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward reiterating a call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. She said Israel and Hamas need to recommit to a peace process that would result in a two-state solution with a secure Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state.
“The path to peace must go through diplomatic negotiations. Long-term peace will not be guaranteed by bombs and bullets.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
