Iran denies Israeli claim it’s shipping arms to Hezbollah
Islamic Republic’s deputy UN ambassador blasts ‘baseless’ allegations made Tuesday, says Israel a terrorist state
Iran’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Gholam Hossein Dehghani, denied Israel’s claim at the UN that Iran is a sponsor of terror, saying that the charges are “absurd and hypocritical,” according to Iranian state media.
On Tuesday, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon sent a letter to UN Security Council members warning that Iran was using commercial flights to Lebanon and Syria to send weapons to its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.
Citing information gleaned from Israeli intelligence agencies, Danon said Iran smuggles arms to Hezbollah “using airlines such as ‘Mahan Air,’ to supply Hezbollah with the capacity to enhance its missile arsenal. The arms and related materials are packed in suitcases by the Quds Force in Iran and transferred directly to Hezbollah operatives.”
The weapons were either transferred directly to Hezbollah by “commercial flights from Beirut” or sent on planes to Damascus and then transferred overland to the Lebanese terror group, he said.
Dehghani said that Danon’s letter “contains a flurry of baseless and unsubstantiated accusations that are leveled against my country without, as usual, a shred of evidence,” adding that it is “amusing too, as it amounts to an innovative in-bulk leveling of accusations against a UN member state.”
Dehghani also hit back at Israel, saying “it is absurd and hypocritical for the representative of a regime that has occupied the lands of other peoples for so many decades and denied every basic right of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination, to accuse occasionally my country of violating international law.”
He also accused Israel itself of engaging in terrorism, as it “has for long been involved in terrorizing and indiscriminately targeting the Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in their own land and in terrorist targeted killings and assassinating individuals in many parts of the world.” He added that Israel is responsible for “bombing and shelling residential areas, destroying schools and hospitals, demolishing houses, confiscating dwellings, violating the sanctity of the religious shrines.”
Iran is Hezbollah’s chief patron, having helped set up the group in the early 1980s. Since then, Iran has supplied Hezbollah with a range of weapons and helped fund its social programs in southern Lebanon, and has used the group to carry out terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets.
At Iran’s behest, Hezbollah has become deeply embroiled in the Syrian civil war, fighting in a Shiite alliance alongside Iranian forces, the Assad regime and Iraqi militias against primarily Sunni rebels.
Israel has reportedly carried out numerous airstrikes in Syria since the civil war began in a bid to stop the smuggling of advanced weapons to Hezbollah, but has otherwise refrained from becoming involved in the deadly conflict that has engulfed the country.
In September, aviation giants Airbus and Boeing received permission from the Obama administration to sell aircraft to Iran, part of deals potentially worth some $50 billion following the removal of sanctions against Iran as part of last year’s nuclear accord.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.