Iran tells UN Human Rights Council Israeli killing machine should be stopped

“The killing machine of Israeli regime must be halted in Gaza, Rafah, and throughout West Asia,” the top diplomat said on Wednesday during a virtual address at the 57th Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“The atrocities committed by Israeli regime are the horrifying embodiment of a deliberate, systematic campaign of human rights and international humanitarian law violations, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide against the Palestinian people—a campaign ongoing since the regime’s illegitimate inception,” he noted.

The official cited the regime’s October-present genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and escalated attacks across the occupied West Bank, which have claimed the lives of around 42,000 people, as well as intensified aggression against Lebanon that have killed hundreds of others so far. He underlined that women and children comprise the majority of the victims.

The violations targeting Gaza and the West Bank have escalated the regime’s crimes to “unprecedented levels”, and are “driving the region to the brink of a serious crisis”, he added.

“The world cannot remain silent; swift and decisive action is not just anticipated—it is a moral imperative.”

Addressing the aggression against Lebanon, he mentioned the regime’s detonation of explosives planted in advance in pagers and walkie-talkie devices across Lebanon in September. The blasts that killed dozens of people and wounded thousands of others exemplified “mass targeting of innocent civilians by using communication technologies as weapons of war,” he stated, noting that the atrocity “further highlights its (the regime’s) utter contempt for human life.”

“This is a clarion call: The time for decisive action is now. The voices of the innocent demand justice, and history will judge those who choose to act—and those who choose to look away.”