Iran blasts ‘ethical fiasco’ of intl. community on Gaza, warns of new murders

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has called on the international community to place on its agenda the trial and administer of justice for the perpetrators of atrocities in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Amir-Abdollahian was about to address a UN Security Council meeting on Palestine on Wednesday, but due to Washington’s delay in issuing visas, the Iranian delegation was unable to attend the event.

In his statement, to be delivered by Iran’s representative in New York for the UN record, Amir-Abdollahian rebuked the United Nations in particular the Security Council for failing to “fulfill their legal and moral responsibilities towards Palestinians and the question of Palestine”.

“Such failure is greatly blamed on the unquestionable support the United States is giving to the occupying regime and preventing any effective measures to make Israel accountable.

“This is in fact an ethical fiasco and depreciation of conscience for the international community and the United Nations system. Notwithstanding, the main responsibility rests with the powers that adamantly prevent the Security Council from fulfilling its roles as enshrined in the UN Charter,” he said.

The meeting on Wednesday was held to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian named 46 years ago by the General Assembly.

The Iranian foreign minister said the natural expectation of the international community was that the Security Council would take an action immediately after the start of indiscriminate attacks on Gaza and prevent the further murder of innocent humans.   

“Who can camouflage that the all-out aggression of the occupying regime against Gaza, as one of the most densely-populated regions of the world which has been under absolute blockade for more than 17 years, as well as the killing of thousands of innocent people more than 70 percent of whom women and children, do not constitute a threat to international peace and security?

“The intensity and volume of the killing of civilians during 50 days of disproportionate attacks on Gaza are unprecedented,” he said.

According to Amir-Abdollahian, the number of children and women killed in Gaza alone far exceeds the total number of women and children killed in various conflicts across the world during the past year including the war in Ukraine.

“Who can ignore the reality that blind and indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza by 2,000-pound bombs and other prohibited weapons such as phosphorous bombs, which make no exception for hospitals, schools, mosques and churches, contain all the elements of grave international crimes including war crime, genocide and crime against humanity?”

The minister said the Security Council and its member are posed to a very severe test, after more than 16,000 Gazans have been killed and over half of northern Gaza has been reduced to rubble.

He said that “nothing other than guaranteeing a complete cessation of the criminal attacks of Israel can partly compensate the moral shame of the international community”.

“One must be alert that humanitarian pause, while being partly fruitful, is not turned into a tool for cleaning the past crimes and creating an opportunity for perpetrating new murders.”

Amir-Abdollahian said violence is “a commodity imposed on our region as the result of the occupation and racial megalomania of the Zionist ideology”.

“Murdering and exterminating the people of Palestine should not become normalized,” he warned.

“Perpetrators must not be allowed to play the victim and evade accountability and responsibility before the international community and keep on genociding the Palestinian nation by resorting to and misusing the crimes committed by others decades ago in another continent against the Jews and by accusing critics of anti-Semitism.”

Amir-Abdollahian also said “branding the legitimate struggle of the people of Palestine for their self-determination right as terrorism is the blatant and deliberate violation of the UN Charter and the peremptory norms of international law and is immoral and reprehensible”.

He called on the UN Security Council and all governments to guarantee a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, prevent the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland, and immediately deliver humanitarian assistance such as food and medicine to the people of Gaza and reconnect electricity and fuel.