Iran’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations has reiterated the country’s call for an immediate end to the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, termination of all forms of military support to the Tel Aviv regime, and complete cessation of hostilities.
Zahra Ershadi made the plea at a UN General Assembly meeting entitled “Strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian and disaster relief assistance of the United Nations, including special economic assistance” in New York on Friday.
Ershadi pointed out that the international community continues to face one of the exceptional challenges and largest tests in its history of humanitarian emergencies, given the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“The Gaza Strip has been beset with the worst siege since 2007, and its humanitarian situation is getting worse daily. The death toll is rising due to the atrocious crimes being committed on a daily basis by the Israeli regime against innocent Palestinians.”
Hospitals, mosques, churches, schools and other purely civilian infrastructures have not been immune, with many hundreds of people being brutally slaughtered inside these places, she said.
The Iranian diplomat highlighted that 70% of the victims killed in Israeli strikes are women and children, and many people have been displaced.
“At least 131 staff members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have lost their lives as a result of the Israeli aggression, and the UN agency’s buildings are under deliberate attacks.”
She went on to lambast the “disappointing and unacceptable” inaction of the international community, including the UN and the Security Council, in the face of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“Humanitarian pauses are not the solution for the deteriorating situation in Gaza. In such a dire situation, sympathy is no longer enough,” the Iranian envoy to the UN stressed.
Instead of denouncing Israel’s brutality in Gaza, those countries which are staunch proponents of humanitarian intervention in other countries and have a horrific record of military interventions in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya among others, embolden the Tel Aviv regime both through their verbal support and supply of sophisticated weapons, she said.
Ershadi stressed that all perpetrators of crimes against Palestinians, including those who aid and abet Israel to commit brutal crimes across Palestinian territories, particularly especially in Gaza, must be held accountable.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements waged the surprise Operation al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
The Israeli aggression has so far killed at least 17,487 Palestinians, most of them women and children. More than 46,480 people have been wounded as well.
Elsewhere in her remarks, the senior Iranian diplomat emphasized that all principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter, notably respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, must be strictly observed by all countries as well as by humanitarian aid organizations, when it comes to the supply of humanitarian aid in other regions.
She added that as countries have the primary role and responsibility in responding to their own humanitarian emergencies, national ownership and leadership in the coordination of humanitarian assistance must be affirmed to ensure its effective delivery.
Therefore, “any humanitarian crises or emergencies, especially those that have been advertently created under a specific and hidden political agenda, must not lead to any foreign intervention, including under the pretext of the responsibility to protect,” Ershadi underlined.
