After bombings in Syria that were attributed to Israel killed many military personnel, including at least two senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a top Iranian ambassador issued a warning, stating that the Islamic Republic reserved the right to react. Written by Zahra Ershadi, charge d’affaires for the Iranian Mission to the UN, the letter denounced the “heinous and abhorrent terrorist attack on the diplomatic premises of the Islamic Republic in Iran in the Syrian Arab Republic, where the capital of Damascus was rocked earlier Monday by explosions attributed by Iranian and Syrian officials to Israel.” It was addressed to UN Secretary-General António Guterres and UN Security Council President Vanessa Frazier.
Potential motives behind the strike
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has not acknowledged nor denied its participation in the strikes, which coincide with an ongoing campaign of clandestine Israeli operations against sites in Syria that are thought to be connected to Iran. A major escalation would occur if Iran’s embassy were targeted at a time when regional tensions were already high due to the current conflict in the Gaza Strip. Following the destruction of its consulate in Damascus, Syria, by an alleged Israeli missile strike that claimed the lives of seven individuals, including a top commander and his deputy, Iran has vowed to retaliate.
Reaction from the international community
At least five Iranian servicemen, including senior military advisors, were reportedly killed in the strikes, according to Ershadi. The IRGC has now named two of the victims as General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi. She issued a warning that the strikes were a flagrant violation of international law and that they had far-reaching international implications that may ignite more conflict involving other nations in addition to exacerbating tensions in the area.
Israel has regularly attacked Iran’s military facilities in Syria as well as those of its allies, but this incident marked the first time the embassy compound was the target of an Israeli attack. The consulate was hit. It is located in the Mezzeh neighborhood of Damascus, close to the main diplomatic complex. Images from the site revealed twisted steel and mounds of debris, while close by, an Iranian flag was still flying from a pole.
Potential methods of response against Israel
The U.N. leadership declared that Israel would suffer grave consequences from Iran and called for an immediate response to the strike. The aggressor Zionist regime bears full responsibility for its consequences,” added Ershadi, ” and the Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its legitimate and inherent right under international law and the United Nations Charter to take a decisive response to such reprehensible acts.” According to an IRGC statement, seven IRGC military advisers were slain when the incident occurred while they were inside the premises. As many as eleven persons, including eight Iranians, two Syrians, and one Lebanese, all of them were combatants, have been murdered, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor located in the United Kingdom.
Risks and consequences of escalation
Iran’s mobilization of advisers and allied militias to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as his government faced battle against rebels and jihadis in a civil war that broke out in 2011 has strengthened the long-standing tight ties between Damascus and Tehran. Israel, on the other hand, has seen this Iranian presence as a danger and has dubbed its assaults against locations associated with Iran as the war between wars.
Syria is one of several fronts in which groups linked with the larger Iran-led Axis of Resistance have claimed assaults against Israel in sympathy with Palestinians, with Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. Israel is now at full scale war with the Palestinian Hamas organization in Gaza. Speaking close to the bombing site, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mekdad questioned the humanity of the accused culprits and issued a warning that the purported Israeli operation would not damage relations between Tehran and Damascus.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Foreign states also expressed condemnation, with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq issuing statements denouncing what were seen as unlawful and unstable assaults on Damascus’ diplomatic buildings. In a sharply worded statement, Russia which, together with Iran, supported Assad through a direct military action in 2015 also denounced the strike as a “categorically unacceptable” breach of the Vienna Conventions. It calls particular attention to the fact that the incident took place in a heavily populated urban region, raising the possibility of widespread civilian casualties.