Ambassador Feda Abdelhady, Deputy Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the U.N., (C) speaks during a U.N. Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East. AFP
Earlier, Israel assassinated Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and top Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Lebanon.
Israel acknowledged the Lebanon strike, but it has been so far silent on Haniyeh’s death, neither acknowledging nor denying it.
Israel has a long history of killing enemies abroad, including Iranian nuclear scientists and Palestinian figures.
The New York Times reported that "Israel publicly claimed responsibility for the Hezbollah attack while not confirming its involvement in the killing of Haniyeh, although US officials privately acknowledged that it had been carried out by the Israelis."
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the UN, urged the council to hold Israel accountable and consider sanctions on it.
He underscored that his country reserved the right to “respond decisively to this terrorist and criminal act, when necessary and appropriate.”
At the meeting, Feda Abdelhady Nasser, the deputy permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, said the global community must stop Israel from dragging the Middle East into the “abyss”.
“Israel has been the oppressor, tormentor, and murderer of Palestinians for decades, and it is the longstanding destabilizer of our region,” she added.
“It must be stopped,” she continued, calling for accountability for the killing of Haniyeh and the “murder and injury of over 130,000 Palestinian children, women, and men across these past 300 days of horror and hell in Gaza.”
While China, Russia, and Algeria condemned Haniyeh’s assassination, the US, UK, and France raised what they claimed was Iranian support for destabilizing actors in the region.
Robert Wood, deputy US ambassador to the UN, urged members of the Security Council with influence over Iran “to increase pressure on it to stop escalating its proxy conflict against Israel and other actors."
Lebanese Ambassador Hadi Hachem accused Israel of trying to kindle a region-wide conflict. He implored the council “to take a firm stand before it is too late.”
Japan said it feared an all-out war in the Middle East.
“The various attacks over the past few days represent a serious and dangerous escalation,” UN Undersecretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo said. She called for diplomatic efforts “to change the trajectory and seek a path toward regional peace and stability.”
However, the UN’s most powerful body issued no collective message after Wednesday’s emergency meeting.
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