Upon instructions from my Government and pursuant to our letter dated 1 April 2024 concerning the Israeli regime's armed attacks against the diplomatic premises of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus, the Syrian Arab Republic, which led to the martyrdom of seven Iranian senior military advisories (A/78/838-S/2024/281), I would like to inform you that, in the late hours of 13 April 2024, the Islamic Republic of Iran carried out a series of military strikes on Israeli military objectives.This action was in the exercise of Iran's inherent right to self-defense as outlined in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, and in response to the Israeli recurring military aggressions, particularly its armed attack on 1st April 2024 against Iranian diplomatic premises, in the defiance of Article 2 (4) of the Charter of the United Nations.
It is surprisingly difficult to find a good definition of self-defense under the UN Charter, but I found an article from Chatham House putting together the opinions of a number of experts of what qualifies as self-defense.
One of the conditions they mention seems obvious but it does need to be spelled out:
Force may be used in self-defence only when this is necessary to bring an attack to an end, or to avert an imminent attack. There must be no practical alternative to the proposed use of force that is likely to be effective in ending or averting the attack.The criterion of necessity is fundamental to the law of self-defence Force in self defence may be used only when it is necessary to end or avert an attack. Thus, all peaceful means of ending or averting the attack must have been exhausted or be unavailable. As such there should be no practical non-military alternative to the proposed course of action that would be likely to be effective in averting the threat or bringing an end to an attack. Necessity is a threshold, and the criterion of imminence can be seen to be an aspect of it, inasmuch as it requires that there be no time to pursue non-forcible measures with a reasonable chance of averting or stopping the attack.Necessity is also a limit to the use of force in self-defence in that it restricts the response to the elimination of the attack and is thus linked to the criterion of proportionality. The defensive measure must be limited to what is necessary to avert the on-going attack or bring it to an end.In applying the test of necessity, reference may be made to the means available to the state under attack; the kinds of forces and the level of armament to hand will be relevant to the nature and intensity of response that it would be reasonable to expect, as well as the realistic possibilities of resorting to non-military means in the circumstances.
How, exactly, is sending hundreds of projectiles to many areas of Israel from the north to the south going to stop Israel's alleged aggression in attacking targets that help Hezbollah arm and plan attacks on Israel?
Iranian general Mohammad Reza Zahedi was a member of Hezbollah's Shura Council. Hezbollah admits that he was an important contributor to their military efforts. He was meeting in Damascus to discuss attacks on Israel. Attacking him, outside the Iranian embassy building, was perfectly legal and a real example of self defense.
Did Iran have a peaceful alternative to the massive drone and missile attack? Of course. It could have stopped arming and funding Hezbollah, a terror group whose entire purpose is to try to destroy Israel. Indeed, Hezbollah's raison d'etre is the very reason Israel has no alternative besides military against Hezbollah.
The letter to the Security Council shows how little regard Iran has for the truth, and the depth of its hostility to the Jewish state.
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