Top Un Body Condemns Iran Attacks Against Gulf Neighbors

The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on Wednesday invoking Article 51 in the UN Charter — member states’ collective or individual right to self-defense — against the retaliatory attacks by Iran across the Gulf region amid the Mideast war raging in its 12th consecutive day. The text, sponsored by Bahrain, a Council member, also condemns “in the strongest terms” the “egregious attacks” by Iran against its Gulf neighbors and Jordan.

Resolution 2817, sponsored by 134 other countries, passed on March 11 with 13 votes in favor and two abstentions, from China and Russia. Russia sponsored a short counterdraft on the same day that failed to gather the nine positive votes to succeed. It had urged “all parties” to immediately stop their “military activities” and refrain from further escalation in the Mideast and beyond. China, Pakistan and Somalia joined Russia voting for the draft, while the United States and Latvia voted no and the remaining nine Council members abstained.

Earlier on March 11, the Council met in an emergency session, requested by France, to debate the fallout in Lebanon from the war being waged by the US and Israel against Iran since Feb. 28. Israel is pummeling Lebanon to try to fully eradicate the Hezbollah militia, and approximately 750,000 people have been displaced amid the violence.

The Council resolution on Iran specifies its retaliatory strikes against Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, but does not mention Israel, which has also been targeted by Iran. The text describes the attacks by Iran in the region as a breach of international law and a serious threat to international peace and security.

The document reaffirms “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense in response to the deplorable armed attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran, as recognized by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.” But the text does not mention the role of the US or Israel in starting the war through a joint attack on Tehran, Iran’s capital, on Feb. 28.

A US missile strike hit a girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran, that same day, killing at least 175 people in what has been described as a double-tap hit, according to an investigation by The New York Times. Days after the strike, President Trump suggested that Iran may have fired the missile on the school, but that was quickly debunked by numerous media reports. No one in the Council has publicly raised the killing at the school.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and other top Iranian officials were also killed in the ongoing joint military operations across multiple cities in Iran. On March 5, Israel’s envoy, Danny Danon, told reporters at the UN that Israeli Air Force pilots had conducted more than 2,500 strikes using over 6,000 munitions against Iranian military targets so far in the war. Joint strikes have killed approximately 1,300 civilians, according to the Iranian government.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, told reporters this week that US-Israeli attacks had also destroyed 9,669 civilian sites across the country. The strikes, he said, have targeted 7,943 residential homes, 1,617 commercial and service centers, 32 medical and pharmaceutical facilities, 65 schools and educational institutions, 13 Red Cross buildings and several energy supply facilities.

After the vote approving Resolution 2817, Russia, explaining its abstention, said the text was “one-sided” because it failed to acknowledge the US-Israel attacks on Iran, adding that both countries targeted Tehran despite ongoing diplomatic efforts by Oman. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia also said the US failed to heed repeated requests not to use Arab states to conduct military operations against Iran.

“If someone who is not well versed in international affairs reads this, then this person will be left with the impression that Tehran, on its own volition and out of malice, conducted an unprovoked attack on Arab states,” Nebenzia said on March 11, referring to the resolution. “At the same time, the attacks against the territory of Iran itself, let alone those who are behind them and carrying them out, are not only not condemned in the document but simply left out.

And the Security Council has just signed off on this.” Russia’s own draft also avoided naming Washington and Israel for their joint assaults against Iran. Additionally, the document did not address the concerns of Arab countries regarding Iranian retaliatory missiles and drones assaults that are affecting civilians. Instead, it emphasized the “importance” of ensuring security in the Mideast and beyond. “The draft resolution proposed by Russia reaffirms the purposes and principles of the UN Charter,” Fu Cong, China’s envoy to the UN, said.

“It urges all parties to immediately cease military actions, condemns all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, encourages all parties to return to the track of diplomatic negotiations. Its content is principled and balanced.” Britain accused Russia of hypocrisy, saying it has refused proposals for a ceasefire in its own war in Ukraine and has persisted its warfare on civilian infrastructure against its neighbor, including with Iranian‑made Shahed drones.

Mike Waltz, US envoy to the UN, pointed fingers at Iran as an instigator of violence in the Mideast, avoiding acknowledging the role of his country (and Israel) in the current fight with the Tehran regime.

He commended the Council for adopting the Bahrain-led resolution, saying, “The Iranian regime exported instability abroad, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza into battlegrounds and left them no hope of peace or prosperity.” Blocking straits in the region As to maritime security, the Council resolution condemned Iranian actions obstructing navigation through the globally trafficked Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandab strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

The text called on Tehran to refrain from actions that “impede lawful transit passage or freedom of navigation in these international waterways,” saying such a blockade “constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security.” Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, through which roughly millions of oil barrels pass daily, leaving ships stranded and driving up the price of crude.

According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), ship traffic through the strait has dropped 97 percent amid the war so far.

Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres, said this week that UNCTAD, which promotes the interests of developing countries in world commerce, warned “that higher energy, fertilizer and transport costs could drive up food prices and intensify cost-of-living pressures, particularly for the most vulnerable people around the world.” Violence in Lebanon In the morning of March 11, Council members met to balance condemnation against attacks by Israel on Lebanon’s territorial integrity and Israel’s right to self-defense.

Hundreds of civilians in Lebanon have been killed or displaced since March 2, when Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighting ignited. Israel has hit Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, with multiple strikes after Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel on March 2, reacting to the murder of Iran’s supreme leader. More than 570 people have been killed and over 1,400 injured in the fighting, which has reopened the war front in Lebanon after a sporadic ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel since November 2024.

“We reaffirm our support for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon,” Aglaia Balta, Greece’s envoy to the UN, said in the Council. “As the spiral of escalation accelerates, we call for maximum restraint and the protection of civilians and infrastructure.

Greece recognizes [Israel’s] right to defend itself according to international law, however, further escalation must be avoided.” UN peace operations chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the Council that UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, had documented more than 4,120 trajectories across the Blue Line of demarcation in the area since March 1. On March 6, several Ghanaian peacekeepers were injured, one severely, inside their Unifil base from military fire that is being investigated by the peacekeeping mission.

“Lebanon is exhausted by other people’s wars,” Tom Fletcher, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the Council on Wednesday, reading out the casualty toll in the country. “It is not asking for help, but for oxygen. Its people can defy the history, the geography, even the politics. They can be stronger than the forces pulling them apart.

But they can only do that if Israel and Iran stop fighting their war in Lebanon.” Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to UN peacekeeping and US-UN relations. She also oversees all video production for PassBlue. She was a Dag Hammarskjold fellow in 2023 and a Pulitzer Center postgraduate fellow in 2021.

She was part of the BBC Africa team that produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Sex for Grades.” In addition, she worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Blaming the victim (Iran) and forgetting the agressors (US and Israel), what a shame!!!

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