Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations has described as “explosive” the situation in Palestine, stressing that international disregard of Israel’s long-time crimes against Palestinians resulted in the 12-day war against Iran.
Dmitry Polyansky said at a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in West Asia on Monday that ignoring the Palestinian issue and the Israeli regime’s expansion of its illegal settlement activities led to the conflict between Tehran and Tel Aviv.
“We have repeatedly warned that the unsettled state of one of the major and protracted conflicts in the Middle East seriously impacts developments in the region and may trigger a large-scale conflict involving neighboring countries. Regrettably, a deaf ear was turned to us and other countries calling for urgent collective efforts on the Middle East settlement track,” Polyansky said.
“The persistent disregard of the Palestinian problem resulted in the 12-day war that was unleashed right before our eyes when two nuclear states attacked a non-nuclear participant in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he added.
The Russian diplomat underlined that no progress is seen concerning the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 2334, which calls on Israel to immediately stop its illegal settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“The satiation in the occupied Palestinian territories and generally in the process of the Middle East settlement remains explosive,” he added.
More than 700,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds, while the international community views the settlements as illegal under international law and the Geneva Conventions due to their construction on occupied territories.
The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in several resolutions.
Despite a decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories, the Israeli regime has launched a devastating war on the besieged Gaza Strip since October 2023, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children.
In support of Palestinians and retaliation for the Israeli assassination of a number of leaders of the resistance front, as well as an attack on its diplomatic mission in the Syrian capital of Damascus, Iran fired hundreds of missiles at the Israeli-occupied territories last year as part of Operation True Promise I and II.
In a new round of confrontation, Israel launched an unprovoked war of aggression against the Islamic Republic on June 13, assassinating senior military commanders and top nuclear scientists in targeted strikes before attacking nuclear and military sites and residential areas.
The Iranian Armed Forces responded with missile strikes as part of Operation True Promise III, which targeted many strategic sites across the Israeli-occupied territories.
Iran’s retaliation included the launch of over 500 ballistic missiles and around 1,100 drones at Israel. The attacks killed 28 people and wounded some 5,000 others in the occupied territories.
On June 22, the United States joined the Israeli regime in the assault and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites in a grave violation of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The 12-day war ended with a unilateral US-brokered ceasefire last week.