Iran's strikes on Israel are self-defense and constitute "proportionate defensive operations directed exclusively against military targets and related infrastructure", Iran's Ambassador to the UN Amir Saeed Iravani told the UN Security Council, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
In a letter, he wrote that any cooperation by third countries with Israeli strikes on Iran "makes them complicit, legally responsible, and complicit in the consequences of this crisis".
Under Art. 51 of the UN Charter, the 15-member Security Council of the organization must be informed immediately of any action that member states take in self-defense against an armed attack.
Israeli strikes in Iran have killed at least 224 people and wounded more than 1,200 since Friday, the official bulletin of the Iranian Ministry of Health said, reported Agence France-Presse, BTA reports. “Over 90 percent of the victims are civilians“, said yesterday in “Ex“ ministry spokesman Hossein Kermanpour.
In response to the Israeli strikes, Iran fired several salvos of missiles at Israel, in which, according to the latest Israeli data, the casualties were 24. The Israeli strikes on Iran destroyed a third of Iran's surface-to-surface missile installations, the Israeli army said today.
Following a call for the evacuation of an area in northeastern Tehran, the building of Iran's radio and television company was also hit today, briefly halting its broadcasts. The Iranian Foreign Ministry described this as a heinous attack and a war crime and called for immediate action by the UN Security Council.
Tehran residents began to leave the city en masse, leading to traffic jams. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran's Natanz nuclear facility was not hit underground by Israeli strikes, while Israel said it had destroyed the main facility at the facility. Iranian missiles have also successfully hit several Israeli cities, according to Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said today that US President Donald Trump could stop Israel's attacks on Iran with just one phone call, AFP reported.
"It only takes one phone call to Washington to stop someone like Netanyahu. "This could pave the way for a return to diplomacy," Araghchi said in a message published in "Ex", saying Trump was serious about diplomacy and interested in stopping the war.
"Israel must end its aggression, but in the absence of a complete ceasefire by the military aggressor against us, our responses will continue," Araghchi said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in turn, said that the assassination of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would end the conflict, Agence France-Presse reported. Netanyahu expressed this opinion in an interview with ABC television.
"This will not lead to an escalation of the conflict, this will lead to an end to the conflict“, Netanyahu said in response to a question about US President Donald Trump's opposition to a plan aimed at eliminating Iran's supreme leader.
When asked whether Israel would actually target Khamenei, Netanyahu replied that his country was doing what needed to be done.
The Israeli prime minister also said that the Israeli strikes against Iran had set Iran's nuclear program back a long, long way, the Associated Press reported. He said Israel was not trying to overthrow the Iranian government, but added that he would not be surprised if that happened as a result of the strikes.
“The regime is very weakened“, Netanyahu said, adding that he speaks daily by phone with US President Donald Trump.
Earlier this evening, the Israeli army said it had identified the launch of Iranian missiles towards northern Israel, AFP reported. This caused sirens to be activated in that part of the country, the Israeli forces added in a statement.
At the same time, Iranian state media said that Iranian air defenses were activated over the area of the Isfahan nuclear facility against enemy targets, Reuters reported.