Iran says 1,332 civilians killed in war

At least 1,332 civilians have been killed and thousands more injured since the start of the conflict with Israel and the United States, Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Amir Sejd Iravani said on Friday.

At a meeting with journalists at the United Nations headquarters in New York, he accused the US and Israel of deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure. According to him, Iran, by contrast, targets exclusively military objectives. Washington and Tel Aviv reject the allegation and say the opposite.

The Iranian diplomat also maintained that Tehran does not attack the interests of neighbouring countries and is verifying information about strikes on non-military targets. According to him, some incidents may have been caused by US air defence systems, which may have deflected projectiles from their original military targets.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump called on Iran to ‘unconditionally surrender’ and said the country’s new supreme leader must be ‘acceptable’. Iravani described the remarks as a violation of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states.

(reuters, est)