Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday said his country will take revenge on Israel after a deadly explosion at the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday, which Tehran officials immediately blamed on Israel.
Six people are reported to have died in the strike, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, an officer in an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“This unfair crime won’t go unanswered,” Raisi said according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency.
Israel has so far not commented on Iran’s allegations.
Israeli forces have repeatedly carried out airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria and Iran-backed Hezbollah militias in Lebanon since the start of its war against Tehran’s ally, Hamas, in Gaza after Palestinian militants killed 1,200 people and took hundreds of others hostage in a deadly attack on Oct. 7 last year.
On Monday, Iranian Ambassador to the U.N. Zahra Ershadi called on the U.N. Security Council to hold an emergency meeting, urging the body to condemn “this unjustified criminal act and terrorist act perpetrated by the Israel regime in the strongest terms possible,” according to the U.S. public broadcaster VOA. An open U.N Security Council briefing regarding the matter is scheduled later Tuesday according to Dmitry Polyansky, a Russian U.N. representative.
According to Iranian state media, several diplomats were also killed, although the ambassador, Hossein Akbari, is reported to be unharmed.
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