In a letter to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar accused Iran of seeking to “annihilate” Israel through its nuclear program, its plan to build thousands of ballistic missiles, and attacks on the Jewish state by its numerous terror proxies in the region.
The communiqué was a response to an Iranian letter to the UNSC on Monday invoking the Islamic Republic’s right to self-defense following the beginning of Israel’s offensive on June 13. Sa’ar’s message sought to offer legal justification for Israel’s campaign of airstrikes and other attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and various military targets.
Sa’ar pointed out that as recently as last month, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that he vowed would be “eradicated.” Sa’ar said Israel’s attack on Iran was launched following “a critical development” in Iran’s nuclear program.
The foreign minister asserted that this, combined with Iran’s plan to build an arsenal of 10,000 ballistic missiles, as well as its support for attacks on Israel by terror proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others, was part of Iran’s “pursuit of Israel’s annihilation,” thus justifying Israel’s attack.
Sa’ar, in his letter, appeared to be using two different legal arguments to support Israel’s military campaign: that Jerusalem had a right to launch an open war against Tehran due to the multiplicity of imminent threats it posed to the Jewish state; and that it was essentially already at war with it, with the air campaign merely an expansion of an ongoing conflict.
In arguing Israel’s right to preemptively attack Iran, Sa’ar wrote that Israel launched what it has dubbed Operation Rising Lion to “neutralize the existential and imminent threat from Iran’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs.”
A key condition in international law for launching a preemptive attack on another country is that that country, in this case Iran, is expected to imminently attack the state actually initiating hostilities. Other important conditions are that the moment of attack is a “last window of opportunity” and that an attack is a “last resort” after diplomatic options have been exhausted.
The foreign minister said Israel’s attack was launched “following a critical development in Iran’s nuclear weapons program” and was aimed at “thwarting the imminent threat of additional Iranian missile and proxy attacks.”
He also said that “reliable intelligence” had confirmed that Iran had significantly accelerated its clandestine efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
Sa’ar noted that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors nuclear activities to ensure they remain peaceful, had recently found Iran to be in noncompliance with safeguards under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, to which Iran is a signatory, and that in response to this determination, Tehran had vowed to further expand its uranium enrichment program.
The foreign minister also called Iran’s plan to build 10,000 ballistic missiles in the next three years an “intolerable threat,” given Israel’s small size and Iran’s proven readiness to use such missiles, which it did in its major salvos against Israel in April and October of last year, as well as what he said were its “indiscriminate and barbaric missile attacks” that have been “deliberately targeting Israeli civilians” since June 13.
In arguing that Israel’s air campaign against Iran was part of an ongoing war with Iran, Sa’ar noted that the Islamic Republic has “established an extensive network of terrorist proxies surrounding Israel” that it has funded and armed with advanced weaponry.
“Iran has been and continues to be substantially involved in its proxies’ persistent and unlawful attacks against Israel,” Sa’ar said, with these being directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“This is all part of the Iranian war plan to encircle Israel with a ‘ring of fire’ in pursuit of Israel’s annihilation, including through ground invasions into Israeli territory,” Sa’ar continued, in reference to Hamas’s October 7 invasion, and detailed plans by the Hezbollah terror group for a similar deadly assault.
Describing the hostilities with Iran as an “ongoing armed conflict,” Sa’ar said Israel would not tolerate such a situation and described Operation Rising Lion as “a measure of last resort,” insisting that the attack was launched at “the last window of opportunity” to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“Israel, as the Jewish homeland, cannot and will not accept the threat of extermination,” wrote Sa’ar.
“Such existential threats, aimed at Israel’s annihilation, seek to revive the darkest and most barbaric periods in human history,” he said. “This is not mere rhetoric. Iran has a strategic plan to eliminate Israel, which includes concrete plans and actions to achieve this goal.”