Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East. Photo: UN/Loey Felipe

The United Nations (UN) Security Council met this Wednesday (2), following the advance of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Iran’s response with 200 missiles. Despite calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East, reality appears to be far from that.

According to journalist Jamil Chade, the meeting was far from advancing a truce as it was marked by accusations between the Iranian and Israeli ambassadors.

Read more: Iran draws a line on the ground and bombs Israel with 200 missiles

Israel’s ambassador, Danny Danon, spoke of the “biggest attack” ever suffered and which hurts the existence of his people, comparing it to bombings during the Second World War. The speech was supported by the United States, in which Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield reaffirmed that Iran will be held responsible.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Iravani, said that the response was necessary and that new measures would be taken if necessary. To top it off, he implicated the US as complicit in Israeli terrorism by supplying weapons and called on the Security Council to convict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of war crimes.

Persona non grata

One situation caught even more attention than the emergency meeting. Hours before the meeting, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, declared to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, persona non grata and that he does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil. Katz also said that Guterres “is an anti-Israel secretary general who supports terrorists, rapists and murderers.”

Guterres, who has been a critic of the escalation of the war, was not intimidated and opened the Security Council meeting with a call for an immediate end to the violence.

As he put it, Israel’s pretext for attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran’s retaliation has taken the Middle East to the precipice: “each new escalation serves as a pretext for the next”.

According to the UN, at least 1,700 people were killed in Lebanon, including 100 children, and 346,000 people had to leave their homes.

For Guterres, the Iranian attack with 200 missiles does not contribute to the cause of the Palestinian people or reduce their suffering. With that, he called for an immediate ceasefire between all parties.

*With information from international agencies and UOL

Source: vermelho.org.br



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