Israel’s war on Gaza updates: UN chief says Middle East ‘on the brink’

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We will be closing this live page soon. Here’s a quick recap from today:

• UN Secretary-General Guterres told the UN Security Council, “We have a shared responsibility to secure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza”.
• Iran’s ambassador to the UN said its attack on Israel “was entirely in the exercise of Iran’s inherent right to self-defence”.
• Iranian FM said Tehran warned allies 72 hours before the strike, but US officials deny receiving notice.
• Israeli forces and settlers injured at least five Palestinians in the Jalazoun refugee camp and the al-Mazraa Asharqiya village in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
• The leaders of the G7 nations accused Iran of further stepping “toward the destabilisation of the region”, adding that Tehran “risks provoking an uncontrollable regional escalation”.
• Hezbollah congratulated Iran’s leadership for its attack on Israel, calling it a “wise decision to respond firmly to the Zionist aggression against the Iranian consulate in Damascus”.
• The Israeli war cabinet met to debate the response to the Iranian attack.
• Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said Israel will exact a price from Iran when the time is “right”.

Israelis have shot and killed four civilians in the occupied West Bank since Friday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement on Telegram.

The ministry said that more than 65 other Palestinians were wounded in the same period, with the majority of injuries caused by gunfire from Israeli forces and settlers.

The ministry said Israelis have now killed at least 464 Palestinians and injured more than 4,800 in the occupied West Bank since October 7.

Israeli air attacks hit a house northwest of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday evening, killing five people and injuring dozens, according to the Wafa news agency.

Wafa also reported that Israeli air attacks levelled a mosque in Nuseirat and struck a residential tower in the camp.

Israel was certainly hoping there would be condemnation [of Iran’s attacks] but it appears that there will not be a statement from the Security Council. The council operates with consensus and clearly, they did not have consensus on this.

That will not sit well with the Israelis but I should point out that after the April 1 Israeli attack on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Damascus, Russia and Algeria, and other Security Council members, also asked for a statement of condemnation and that did not happen either, mostly blocked by the United States, France and the UK.

So where are we at? We’re back to the point of everyone calling for restraint and where all council members – and this is where we have some sort of unanimity… on opinions – calling for no escalation.

And clearly, the ball now is in Israel’s court because Iran has said they consider this matter over at this point.

UK security company Ambrey says that the Israeli military intercepted an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) launched from Yemen near the Israeli port city of Eilat on the Red Sea.

Ambrey said they also observed unprecedented levels of Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) interference off Eilat and neighbouring Aqaba, Jordan, on the same day.

“These were due to electronic warfare counter-measures,” the statement said.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October, Houthi rebels in Yemen have fired drones from across the Red Sea towards Eilat and Israeli-linked ships as a show of solidarity for Palestinians in Gaza.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, said, “In response to the Israeli regime’s recurring military aggression, particularly its armed attack on April 1 2024 against Iranian diplomatic premises” and in line with the second article of the UN charter, the Iranian military “carried out a series of military strikes on Israeli military objectives” using missiles and drones.

The operation, he said, “was entirely in the exercise of Iran’s inherent right to self-defence”.

He then highlighted the US, UK and France as having chosen “to turn a blind eye to reality and overlook the root causes contributing to the current situation”.

“In hypocritical behaviour, these three countries falsely blamed and accused Iran without considering their own failures: to uphold the international commitment to peace and security in the region.

“They made unsuccessful attempts to use lies, manipulate the narrative, spread disinformation and engage in a destructive blame game.

“For over six months now, these countries, especially the United States, have shielded Israel from any responsibility for the Gaza massacre.

“While they have denied Iran the inherent right to self-defence against the Israeli armed attack on our diplomatic premises, at the same time, they shamefully justified a massacre and genocide against the defenceless Palestinian people”.

In his pretty long speech, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, had a lot of hyperbole in there but when it got down to what Israel really wants to see, it came down to three things:

There was a strong condemnation that Israel hopes the Security Council will issue against Iran.

Israel is expecting the UN to impose more sanctions and the Israeli ambassador says [JCPOA nuclear deal measures] should be implemented immediately.

And then he also wants the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] to be tagged as a “terrorist organisation”.

But I think it was the sanctions that Israel was really looking for here and we’ll have to see if that comes about.

[Essentially], Israel has laid out the case that they are the victims here and Iran – in their view – is the one spreading “terror”; not only, in their view, in Israel but in other parts of the world and region as well.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, says: “From the moment I began my tenure here, in every speech and in countless letters, I rang the warning bell regarding Iran.

“I called on this council to take concrete action against the Ayatollah regime. I made it clear that Iran and its hegemonic ambitions of global domination must be stopped before it drives the world to a point of no return, to a regional war that can escalate to a world war.

“Last night, the world witnessed an unprecedented escalation that serves as the clearest proof for what happens when warnings aren’t heeded.”

He then said that Iran’s goal “has been and continues to be world domination by exporting its radical [Shia] revolution across the globe”.

“The Islamic regime of today is no different from the Third Reich and Khamenei is no different from Adolf Hitler,” he added.

As expected, the Russian ambassador made a very persuasive case for why Iran took the action it did.

In his words, it was hypocrisy and double standards. His case was that on April 2, when the Security Council met after Israel struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Russia said, let’s have a condemnation of that because it’s a direct and obvious violation of international law, a direct and obvious violation of the Vienna Convention that prohibits aggressions against diplomatic facilities.

And the council didn’t do that. The council could not reach any sort of condemnation of Israel. In fact, the Russian ambassador said, we’ve provided a press statement that we could have sent out in the name of the Security Council and even that was rejected because, as the Americans on April 2 said, we don’t know if Israel was involved. We need to wait. We need more information. We don’t know how condemnation could affect potential ceasefire talks on the ground.

And so the Russian ambassador cited all of that and said, now you want the condemnation when it’s Iran striking Israel but just a couple weeks ago, it was a double standard and you did not want that. I think that was the big message you heard from the Russians.

At least five Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces and settlers in the Jalazoun refugee camp and the al-Mazraa Asharqiya village in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said its crew transferred three of those wounded in the Jalazoun camp to the Istishari Hospital.

The three people were injured during confrontations with settlers from the Beit El settlement who attempted to storm the camp.

The ministry added that the two other injuries in al-Mazraa Asharqiya were due to bullets from the Israeli army during confrontations that took place in the village.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, says Western countries, including France, the UK and the US, are displaying “hypocrisy” after they declined to support a statement condemning the Israeli attack on the Iran consulate on April 1.

“The outcome is now clear for everyone to see. You know very well that an attack against a diplomatic representative is a casus belli [an act that justifies/provokes war] under international law and if a Western representation had been hit, you would immediately have rained down reprisals,” Nebenzia said.

“This is because, for you, everything that has to do with Western representation and Western citizens is sacred and needs to be protected. But when it comes to other countries, their rights, including their right to self-defence about their nationals, that’s a different matter.

“Today in the Security Council, what we’re witnessing is a display of hypocrisy and double standards which is almost embarrassing to watch.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated in a post on X that “Iran’s actions threaten the entire region and the world, just as Russia’s actions threaten a larger conflict, and the obvious collaboration between the two regimes in spreading terror must face a resolute and united response from the world”.

Speaking later in his nightly video address, the Ukrainian president said the world had seen that “Israel was not alone in its defence – the threats in the sky were also destroyed by its allies”.

“And when Ukraine says allies cannot turn a blind eye to Russian missiles and drones, it means that it is necessary to act, and act strongly,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine’s skies, he added, were “not protected by rhetoric”.

Zelenskyy has urged Ukraine’s Western allies, particularly the United States, for months to summon the “political will” to provide Ukraine with sufficient air defences and weaponry.

In September 2022, Zelenskyy said he was “in shock” at Israel’s failure to give Kyiv anti-missile systems to help counter Russian attacks.

The Ukrainian government has been a strong supporter of Israel during its war in Gaza, despite many critics pointing to what they perceive to be the hypocrisy of decrying Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory while supporting Israel as it occupies Palestinian territory.

The UN secretary-general is cautioning the world… to step back from the brink.

In his word words, the Middle East is on the brink and the people of the region are confronting the real danger of a devastating, full-scale conflict.

The UN secretary-general’s job is not to take sides and he certainly did not do that in this somewhat brief speech to the Security Council.

But you could tell that he was really laying out the boundaries of international law that all member states, he says, of course, need and should abide by.

He referenced, of course, April 1, when Israel struck the Iranian diplomatic mission in Damascus. That was a blatant violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter. He also condemned Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel.

I think he was urging restraint and that might sound like something very noncontroversial but that is his job as a secretary-general.

I think he didn’t want to get too deep into this. But I think the stakes from the secretary-general’s standpoint are very high.

It’s the US’s turn to speak at the UN Security Council, and deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood takes the opportunity to criticise Iran for its attack on Israel, as well as its actions in the wider region.

He says that the US will explore additional measures to hold Iran accountable at the UN, and says that Iran will be held responsible for any further actions it takes.

He adds that an unequivocal condemnation of Iran is needed from the UN Security Council.