The U.S. maritime blockade against Iran has violated international law and heightened tensions, said Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations (UN), Amir Saeid Iravani, Monday at a UN Security Council's open debate on the safety and protection of waterways in the maritime domain.
Since February 28, military actions by the United States and Israel against Iran have disrupted shipping security in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman, said Iravani.
The Strait of Hormuz is increasingly being used to support regional military attacks, including the transfer of military equipment for hostile actions against Iran. Such military acts have exposed international shipping in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to growing and unprecedented risks, he said.
"The United States has continued its internationally wrongful act by imposing maritime blockade, unlawfully seizing Iranian commercial vessels and detaining their crews. These dangerous escalating measures violate international law, breached the UN charter," said Iravani.
"Responsibility for any disruption, obstruction or other interference with the maritime transport in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz lies directly with the aggressors -- the United States and its supporters whose unlawful and destabilizing action have heightened tensions and endangered maritime safety and freedom of navigation," he said.
US maritime blockade violates international law: Iran's UN ambassador
Anger and dismay is rising as a deadly spate of Israeli strikes in Lebanon have expanded beyond border villages and into areas that ordinary residents believed were outside the danger zone, while a ceasefire agreement appears not to be holding.
Despite the two sides agreeing on Thursday to a three-week extension of an original 10-day ceasefire deal which began in mid-April, Lebanon's health ministry reported that 14 people had been killed on Sunday by Israeli strikes on the south of the country.
Controversy has also risen over the Israeli military's efforts to extend the territories it occupies in southern Lebanon as part of what it terms as 'security buffer zone' along the border.
Lebanese residents have been warned against returning to their homes within this area, with Israel announcing that anyone who approaches this so-called "Yellow Line" will be considered a threat.
The buffer zone reaches north of key cities and towns including Bint Jbeil, Aita al-Shaab, and Khiam, and extends to the Litani River in some sectors, encompassing multiple villages and ridge lines.
In Nabatieh, the road north of the Litani is lined with shattered concrete, burned out cars, and building facades which have left exposed after being blasted open. Residents say this was meant to be outside the danger zone -- beyond the so-called "Yellow Line" -- but the strikes have reached there too.
Mohammad Chbib, a local resident, walks through the ruins of what families once called home, a place he says was filled with apartments housing civilians, not Hezbollah fighters.
"Here, there was a building. A six-floor building with 12 apartments. They brought it down on the women, the children, and the people. It was supposed to be safe," he said as he showed the scale of the damage.
Israel has issued warnings and carried out strikes in towns north of the Litani, while also expanding its campaign eastward into the Bekaa Valley and areas close to Lebanon's border with Syria.
Though Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah infrastructure, local officials say civilian areas are being continually hit as the ceasefire has failed to stop the violence.
"The commercial center in the city of Nabatieh is not a center affiliated with the resistance. The municipality of Nabatieh is a municipality affiliated with the Lebanese state," said Abbas Fakher Eldeen, mayor of the city of Nabatieh.
The mayor said the cost can be measured not only in destroyed markets and municipal buildings, but in the lives lost on the streets.
"Inside the city of Nabatieh, three citizens from this area were martyred -- three civilians -- in a drone strike on their car inside Nabatieh," the mayor said.
On Monday, Israel's military said it had begun striking Hezbollah infrastructure in the eastern Bekaa Valley, while security sources reported strikes near Nabi Chit, close to the Syrian border.
Anger grows after Lebanese civilians killed as Israeli attacks go beyond "Yellow Line"
