NEW YORK: The Arab League on Saturday condemned the overnight escalation by Israel and Iran, warning that it risks igniting a full-scale regional war in the Middle East.
It also condemned Iran’s attacks on several Arab states, and affirmed “its support for any measures they take to defend themselves and to protect their populations.”
Speaking at an emergency UN Security Council session, the Arab League’s permanent observer, Maged Abdelfattah Abdelaziz, criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank and neighboring countries, calling them “a glaring failure of the multilateral international system.”
The Arab-Israeli conflict “has expanded into a full-scale regional war,” he said. “Israel seeks, through this escalation, to evade ending its occupation of Palestinian territories, to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and to obstruct Palestine’s admission to the UN in implementation of the two-state solution and the core principles of international legitimacy.”
He accused Israel of broadening its military campaigns beyond Palestine to Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran, describing them as attempts “to impose Israel’s hegemony on the Middle East by using military means, even if it is at the expense of the member states of the League of Arab States and the suffering of their peoples.”
