The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) countries condemned the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and called for intensified diplomatic efforts to prevent an all-out war in the Middle East.
The emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council came Wednesday as Iran and Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules the war-torn Gaza Strip, blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s death and vowed revenge. Israel has not acknowledged responsibility for the Tehran attack.
Haniyeh’s assassination came less than 24 hours after Israel killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukr, in an airstrike on the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Israel said the attack was in response to a rocket attack that killed 12 children and youth from the Druze Arab community in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
At the UN Security Council meeting, Palestine said the international community must prevent Israel from dragging the Middle East into “the abyss,” while China, Russia and Algeria condemned Haniyeh’s assassination. The United States, Britain and France cited what they called Iranian support for destabilizing actors in the region, while Japan said it feared open war in the Middle East.
“Israel has been the oppressor, executioner and murderer of Palestinians for decades, and has long destabilized our region,” said Feda Abdelhady Nasser, Deputy Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the UN. “This must stop,” she added, while calling for those responsible for Haniyeh’s murder and the “killing and injuring of more than 130,000 Palestinian children, women and men during the past 300 days of horror and hell in Gaza” to be brought to justice.
“The international community has a choice to make,” she added. “Let it be so for the sake of peace and security. Let us not let Israel drag us all into the abyss.”
Iranian Ambassador to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani said Tehran had always exercised utmost restraint, but reserved the right to respond decisively to Haniyeh’s assassination. He called on the UN Security Council to condemn Israel and punish it with sanctions.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right to defend itself in accordance with international law and to respond decisively to this terrorist and criminal act when it deems it necessary and appropriate,” Iravani said. “This terrorist act is a new manifestation of Israel’s decades-long policy of terrorism and sabotage against Palestinians and other supporters of the Palestinian cause in the region and beyond,” he added.
Iravani then blamed Haniyeh’s killing on the United States as well as Israel’s “warmongering leaders.”
“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 horrific crime. This act could not have happened without the authorization and support of the American intelligence services,” Iravani said.
Gaza ceasefire talks begin
The United States, however, denied knowledge of the attack and said a wider war was neither imminent nor inevitable. Robert Wood, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N., also called on members with influence over Iran to “increase pressure on it to stop escalating its proxy conflict against Israel and other actors.”
Israel has urged the UN Security Council to condemn Iran for supporting regional “terrorism” and to tighten sanctions against Tehran. Jonathan Miller, Israel’s deputy representative to the UN, also denounced what he called Hezbollah’s failure to condemn the massacres in the town of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights. The Lebanese group has denied any 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, whose Golan Heights Israel seized in 1967, also spoke at the meeting, dismissing as “lies” Israeli claims that the rocket attack on Majdal Shams targeted the Israeli population. Syrian Ambassador Koussay al-Dahhak noted that the territory was Syrian and accused Israel of “weaponizing” the attack on the Druze community “to continue its aggression against states in the region.”
Lebanon also disputed Israel’s claim that its actions in the region constituted acts of self-defense.
“Israel’s claim that it seeks to protect the population it occupies is a display of hypocrisy,” said Hadi Hachem, Lebanon’s chargé d’affaires to the UN. “Israel’s real goal is to prolong and escalate hostilities. And it is ironic that the murderer of tens of thousands of children in Gaza is shedding tears for the children of the occupied Syrian Golan.”
Hachem also warned the UN Security Council that a conflict in the Middle East would have global repercussions.
“What starts in the Middle East will spread to the entire world,” he said.
Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the UN, said the failure to reach a ceasefire in Gaza was responsible for the escalation of tensions.
He called on “countries of major influence” to extinguish the flames of war in the Palestinian enclave.
The Cong went on to describe Haniyeh’s killing as “a blatant attempt to sabotage peace efforts” and urged Israel “to cease all military operations in Gaza and immediately cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza.”
Russia also described Haniyeh’s assassination as a “serious blow” to the truce negotiations, while Shino Mitsuko, Japan’s deputy representative to the UN, said: “We fear the region is on the brink of all-out war” and called for increased international efforts to prevent such a conflict.
France and the UK also called for restraint. London’s UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, reiterated her call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. She said Israel and Hamas must 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 is through diplomatic negotiations. Lasting peace will not be achieved through bombs and bullets.”
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