EU Parliament strongly condemns Iran over attacks on Israel, calls for sanctions
Resolution adopted in vote of 357-20 demands Revolutionary Guards, entirety of Hezbollah to be included on terror list; FM Katz hails ‘diplomatic success and another blow to Iran’
The European Parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution condemning Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel earlier this month, in a vote of 357-20, and calling for further sanctions to be imposed on Iranian entities.
Condemning Iran’s attack on Israel, as well as those carried out before and during the assault by its proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, the resolution assails Tehran’s role in destabilizing the Middle East through its “network of non-state actors.”
The resolution, passed during the final session before the upcoming European elections, reiterated a prior demand for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be included on the European Union’s list of recognized terror organizations, and called for Hezbollah in its entirety to be added to the list as well.
It also demanded the current sanctions regime against Iran be expanded, “including by sanctioning the country’s supply and production of unmanned drones and missiles to Russia and the wider Middle East.”
In addition to condemning Iran’s attack on Israel, the resolution also criticized an April 1 strike on a building in the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, which Iran and Syria have blamed on Israel, stating that the “importance of the principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises” must be respected at all times.
That strike led Iran to launch a massive missile and drone attack on Israel, which the country largely repelled, and brought the sides to the brink of a larger regional war.
The parliament noted Iran’s non-compliance with its obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated with world powers and urged it to rejoin the deal. In 2018, then-president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the accord, saying he would negotiate a stronger deal, but that didn’t happen. Iran began breaking the terms of the deal a year later.
The parliament also called for the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1701, the resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The terror group did not comply with the resolution, which stipulated that it must retreat from the border with Israel to the north of the Litani River.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz lauded the European Parliament resolution as “another Israeli diplomatic success and another blow to Iran.”
“We are tightening the noose around the Iranian regime’s neck – the world understands that Iran needs to be stopped now before it’s too late,” he added.
Recent months have seen a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, widely blamed on Israel, culminating in an April 1 strike that leveled what Iran said was a consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.
That strike prompted Iran to launch a first-ever direct missile and drone attack against Israel on April 13-14 that sent regional tensions spiraling. Israel allegedly responded with a missile strike on an Iranian air defense unit inside Iran.
Iran and Israel’s decades-long shadow war burst into the open after nearly six months of war in the Gaza Strip, where Israel launched an unprecedented offensive after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed the country’s south on October 7 to kill nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and take over 250 hostages.
Since October 7, Iran’s proxies in Lebanon and Yemen have targeted Israel as well, which they say is in support of Gaza’s Palestinians. Gaza’s Hamas rulers also receive financial and logistical assistance from Iran.
