Iran calls for UNSC meeting after Hezbollah chief's killing, vows support to Lebanon
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has also threatened to back Lebanon’s Hezbollah, if Israel continued striking the country
Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, especially after the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iran on Saturday (September 28) called for the United Nations Security Council to meet over Israel’s actions in Lebanon and across the region.
Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani sought the meeting in a letter written to the 15-member body after Israel killed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
In the letter, Iravani called on the Council to “take immediate and decisive action to stop Israel’s ongoing aggression and prevent… from dragging the region into full-scale war.”
Also Read: Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah killed in airstrike: Israel
“Using US-supplied thousand-pound bunker busters, Israel killed Nasrallah and Iranian Gen, Abbas Nilforushan, among others,” he said. He warned Israel not to attack any of its diplomatic or consular premises, or its representatives.
“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,” Iravani wrote. The Iranian diplomat made it clear that his country would “stand with the people of Lebanon by all means.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has also threatened to back Lebanon’s Hezbollah, if Israel continued striking the country. Talking to the media ahead of the UNSC meeting, Araqchi warned that the region is facing a “full-scale catastrophe”.
He made it clear that Iran will support the Lebanese group “by all means” if the fighting continues. “The region is on the brink of a full-scale catastrophe. If unchecked, the world will face catastrophic consequences,” he told the reporters outside the UN building.
Araghchi also claimed that Israel has crossed “all red lines” and called the UNSC to intervene in this regard.
Also Read: In fresh escalation, Israel launches airstrike on Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut
Meanwhile, in his first public statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu described the killing of Hassan Nasrallah as “a historic turning point”.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed 33 people and wounded 195 others on Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said.
More than 1,000 people have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded as a result of Israeli attacks in the past two weeks, the health ministry said, and about one million Lebanese have been displaced by the strikes.
