The Foreign Minister of Law and International Affairs spoke at a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian issue.
The full speech by Gharibabadi is as follows:
Statement by
He is Kazem Galibabadi
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
Islamic republic of Iran
In front of the UN Security Council
Regarding “The Middle East situation including questions about Palestine”
July 23, 2025 – New York
Thank you, President, for convening this timely, open discussion.
president,
We address this council amid the continued collapse of the international legal order and the erosion of the UN Charter.
Over the past two years, the world has witnessed the cruelty of the Israeli regime against the Palestinian people, with rage. These atrocities continue unabated and are strengthened every day.
Today, things have become even more devastating. The Israeli regime devised a systematic way of killing, intentionally targeting hungry civilians as they awaited life-saving aid. This is not just cruel. It’s a planned mass murder.
What is unfolding in Gaza is not a conflict with equality, but the organised and systemic disappearance of besieged civilians by the occupying regime supported and protected by the United States.
This is not just a crisis. It is the decisive humanitarian catastrophe of our time. The scale of suffering, invader immunity, and paralysis of the international community reveal the full breakdown of accountability.
Since October 2023, more than 57,000 Palestinians (mostly women and children) have been killed. Approximately 2 million people have been forced to evacuate. The whole of Gaza is in abandoned. Hospitals, UN shelters, schools and essential infrastructure are being deliberately attacked. Star star is used as a weapon of war.
president,
Gaza is a powerful symbol of unwavering resistance and a distinctive evidence of lasting injustice. This truth is embodied in the extraordinary resilience of its people in the 22 months of relentless atrocities committed by Israeli terrorist regime.
Throughout this period, Israel and its criminal devices have adopted every possible tool of oppression, including the grotesque weaponization of thirst and hunger for vulnerable civilians. But as always, they failed to break the iron will of the Palestinian people.
The people lined up for intentional targeting hungry civilians, bread, water or humanitarian relief are terrible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Self-proclaimed champions of human rights in the international community and Western states, especially the West, cannot wash their accomplice’s hands. They must be held responsible for their silence, their support, and for the blood of more than 1,000 civilians who were massacred in the so-called “assistance distribution centres.”
The Western Provinces also failed their obligations under Article 1 of the Geneva Convention and the Genocide Convention. Their continued support made brutality possible and prevented this council from fulfilling its duties.
Meanwhile, the situation in the occupied West Bank continues to deteriorate. Israel’s illegal settlements, settler violence, and the expansion of institutionalized apartheid policies violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Security Council Resolution 2334, and are part of a broader strategy of permanent occupation and ethnic cleansing.
president,
The threat posed by the Israeli regime is far beyond Gaza and Palestine. As detailed in yesterday’s statement, before this room, Israel carried out a series of provocative and illegal military attacks against Iran’s Islamic Republic, targeting both nuclear and civilian infrastructure, in full cooperation and accomplice with the United States. These attacks resulted in civilian casualties and attacked the facility under IAEA safeguards. They constitute a clear and serious violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and customary international law. The broader member states broadly condemn these attacks as serious threats to regional and international peace and security.
At the same time, Israel continues to seriously violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic by occupying Syrian territory, pursuing illegal annexation and expansion of settlements, and openly denying the UN Charter and related Security Council resolutions.
The regime also violates a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon, with almost one-day violations of Lebanon’s airspace, indiscriminate attacks and ongoing occupation of five border positions all directly violating Resolution 1701.
Furthermore, the Israeli regime has carried out acts of attack on Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, targeting civilian infrastructure, furthering the country’s already dire humanitarian crisis.
president,
In light of these serious violations by the Israeli regime, we pose a clear and growing threat to regional and international peace and security, calling on this council to take urgent and decisive action.
It calls for an immediate, unconditional, permanent ceasefire on Gaza and all occupied Palestinian territory.
Ensure unhindered humanitarian access, safe return of displaced people, and the liberation of all arbitrarily detained Palestinians.
Reject all schemes of forced displacement, buffer zones, or resettlement in the third country.
Supports Palestinians’ full UN membership and reaffirms the right to self-determination of Palestinians.
Enforce withdrawal from all occupied areas of Israel.
Israel is entirely responsible for the acts of aggression and atrocity committed in a terrible violation of the UN Charter and the fundamental principles of international law.
It also personally and collectively urges all countries to take every step of their way to pressure the Israeli regime to stop crime. In this regard, I suggest that countries set, declare and track their commitments to this purpose.
president,
The Security Council must not remain silent in the face of genocide and attacks. Protecting civilians and maintaining peace is not a political option, but a legal and moral obligation. Failure to act will not only betray the Palestinian people, but will forever undermine the credibility of this council and the future of international legal order.
president,
Today, the US representative tried desperately to distort reality on this council and justify her country’s acts of aggression against Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities. It is justified and misrepresents Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to international peace and security. But the facts are clear and they speak for themselves.
Yesterday at this council, I explained in detail the root causes of the current situation. The US attack on Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities was a blatant violation of the UN Charter, international law, resolution 2231, and IAEA resolutions. It also took a serious blow to the global non-proliferation regime.
Furthermore, the United States, around the Israeli regime, is now the main source of instability and uncertainty in the region, and a major threat to international peace and security. Therefore, US representatives are not in a moral, political or legal position to lecture or condemn Iran.
Thank you to the President.
MNA/