One grenade impacted within 20 metres and three within approximately 100 metres of UN personnel and vehicles. File
| Photo Credit: AP

The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said that Israeli drones dropped four grenades close to peacekeepers who were working to clear roadblocks hindering access to a U.N. position on Tuesday (September 2, 2025) morning.

“This is one of the most serious attacks on UNIFIL personnel and assets since the cessation of hostilities agreement of last November,” the UNIFIL said in a statement on Wednesday (September 3, 2025).

One grenade impacted within 20 metres and three within approximately 100 metres of UN personnel and vehicles.

The UNIFIL said that the Israeli military had been informed in advance of UNIFIL’s road clearance work in the area, southeast of the village of Marwahin.

Last week, the United Nations Security Council unanimously extended the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon until the end of 2026, after which a year-long orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal will commence.

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Iran said it was prepared for any new Israeli attack. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Iran said Wednesday (August 20, 2025) it was prepared for any new Israeli attack, announcing it has developed missiles with greater capabilities than those used during their recent 12-day war.

“The missiles used in the 12-day war were manufactured… a few years ago,” Defence Minister Aziz Nassirzadeh said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

“Today, we have manufactured and possess missiles with far greater capabilities than previous missiles, and if the Zionist enemy embarks on the adventure again, we will undoubtedly use them.”

In mid-June, Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran, triggering a war in which Iran responded with missile and drone strikes.

The Israeli offensive killed senior military commanders, nuclear scientists and hundreds of others, striking both military sites and residential areas.

The United States briefly joined the war with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. A ceasefire between Iran and Israel has been in place since June 24.

Iranian officials have since warned that another round of fighting could erupt at any moment, emphasising that Tehran does not seek war but remains prepared for any confrontation.

On Monday, First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said Iran should be “prepared at every moment for confrontation”.

“We are not even in a ceasefire; we are in a cessation of hostilities,” he added.

Iranian media reported that the army is to begin a two-day military exercise on Thursday, featuring a wide range of short and medium-range cruise missiles.

Western governments have repeatedly voiced concern about Iran’s missile programme, calling it a threat to regional security.

In July, France called for a “comprehensive deal” with Tehran that covers not only its nuclear programme but also its missile programme and its regional ambitions.

Iran has insisted that its military capabilities are not up for negotiation.

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Hamas called Israel’s strikes a “blatant violation of Iranian sovereignty”.

On the fourth consecutive day, it targeted the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Lebanon, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) tanks destroyed the main gate of its facility at Ramyah in South Lebanon, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Sunday (October 13, 2024).

Smoke that entered the camp following several rounds fired nearby left 15 peacekeepers with skin irritation and gastrointestinal reactions. Israeli soldiers also stopped a critical UNIFIL logistical movement on Saturday (October 12, 2024), it said.

In a video message to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an “appeal” that the “time has come” to withdraw UNIFIL from “Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones.”

“Mr. Secretary General, get the UNIFIL forces out of harm’s way. It should be done right now, immediately,” Mr. Netanyahu said in the video. “Your refusal to evacuate UNIFIL soldiers has turned them into hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers,” he said.

The IDF said the tank entered the premises as its troops faced a barrage of anti-tank missiles in Southern Lebanon and that a smoke screen was used to provide cover for the evacuation of injured soldiers. “Throughout the entirety of the incident, no danger was posed to UNIFIL forces by the IDF activity,” IDF said, adding its soldiers maintained coordination with UNIFIL throughout.

“An initial review showed that an IDF tank that was trying to evacuate injured soldiers while still under fire backed several meters into a UNIFIL post,” IDF said on X. “Once the enemy fire stopped, and following the evacuation of the injured soldiers, the tank left the post.”

There are more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 50 countries under UNIFIL, under the Security Council. India is the third largest contributor to the force with 903 soldiers. According to defence officials here, the Indian Battalion has no presence at Ramyah.

Early Sunday (October 13, 2024) morning, peacekeepers at a U.N. position in Ramyah observed three platoons of IDF soldiers crossing the Blue Line into Lebanon, UNIFIL said, and around 4.30 a.m., while peacekeepers were in shelters, two IDF Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position. “They requested multiple times that the base turn out its lights. The tanks left about 45 minutes later after UNIFIL protested through our liaison mechanism, saying that IDF presence was putting peacekeepers in danger,” it said in a statement.

Further, around 6.40 a.m., peacekeepers at the same position reported the firing of several rounds 100 metres north, which emitted smoke. “Despite putting on protective masks, fifteen peacekeepers suffered effects, including skin irritation and gastrointestinal reactions, after the smoke entered the camp,” according to UNIFIL. The peacekeepers are receiving treatment.

In addition, on Saturday (October 12, 2024), IDF soldiers stopped a critical UNIFIL logistical movement near Meiss ej Jebel, denying it passage, the statement said, and the critical movement “could not be completed”.

“Breaching and entering a UN position is a further flagrant violation of international law and Security Council resolution 1701 (2006),” UNIFIL reiterated. “Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and Resolution 1701. UNIFIL’s mandate provides for its freedom of movement in its area of operations, and any restriction on this is a violation of Resolution 1701.”

“We have requested an explanation from the IDF from these shocking violations,” it added.

Israel has recently announced a ban on Mr. Guterres from entering Israeli territory. On Sunday (October 13, 2024), 104 countries that included European and African countries as well as much of the Global South, “condemned” this, which was not endorsed by India.

On Saturday (October 12, 2024), a joint statement was issued, initially by 34 troop-contributing countries to UNIFIL, later endorsed by six more countries, including India, condemning the ongoing attacks on peacekeepers and calling all to respect UNIFIL’s mission and ensure the safety of its personnel.

‘Appeal’ to withdraw UNIFIL forces

“We are more determined than ever to ensure our future; we are more determined than ever to defeat our enemies,” Mr. Netanyahu said in the video message while stating that IDF soldiers are fighting forcefully to return Israeli residents in the north safely to their homes. “We are not fighting the Lebanese people, we are fighting Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah, which has occupied Lebanon,” he said.

Mr. Netanyahu said the IDF has requested repeatedly that UNIFIL withdraw from Hezbollah strongholds but has met with “repeated refusal”, which “has the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields.”

“We regret the harm to UNIFIL soldiers and we are doing our utmost to prevent such harm. But the simplest and most obvious way to ensure this is simply to withdraw them from the danger zone,” the he added.

It is pertinent to note that UNIFIL was established according to Security Council resolutions 425 (1978) and 426 (1978) of March 19, 1978 to: confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon; restore international peace and security; and assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area.

A strike on Hezbollah’s stronghold in Lebanon’s capital Beirut on Friday (September 20, 2024) killed eight people and wounded dozens of others, with a source close to the movement saying a top military leader was dead.

The Israeli military said it had conducted a “targeted strike”, while the Lebanese health ministry said the attack had killed eight people and wounded 59 more.

Requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, the source close to Hezbollah said the strike on the militant group’s stronghold in south Beirut had killed the head of its elite Radwan unit, Ibrahim Aqil.

The air strike is the third to hit the southern suburbs of Beirut since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, with the focus of the violence shifting dramatically this week from Gaza to Lebanon.

Earlier this year, strikes blamed on Israel killed a top commander of Hezbollah, Fuad Shukr, and a leader of its allied Palestinian militant group Hamas, Saleh al-Aruri.

An undated photograph of Ibrahim Aqil. Photo: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT via Reuters

“The Israeli air strike killed Radwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil, its armed force’s second-in-command after Fuad Shukr,” the source close to Hezbollah said.

Hezbollah has not officially confirmed his death, but it said after the strike that it had hit an Israeli intelligence base it claimed was responsible for unspecified “assassinations”.

The United States had offered a $7 million reward for information on Aqil, describing him as a “principal member” of the organisation that claimed the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983 that killed 63 people.

Footage posted on social media and verified by AFP showed smoke rising over southern Beirut on Friday.

Communication device explosions

Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters have battled each other along the Israel-Lebanon border since Hamas sparked the war in Gaza with its October 7 attack.

The focus of Israel’s firepower for nearly a year has been on Gaza, but with Hamas much weakened, the focus of the war has shifted dramatically to Israel’s northern border.

Months of near-daily border clashes have killed hundreds in Lebanon, most of them fighters, and dozens in Israel, and forced thousands on both sides to flee their homes.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Hezbollah was hit by an unprecedented attack that it has blamed on Israel, though Israel has yet to comment.

The attack saw thousands of Hezbollah operatives’ communication devices explode across two days, killing 37 people and wounding thousands more.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Thursday that Israel would face retribution for the blasts.

Earlier Friday, Israel said Hezbollah had fired dozens of rockets from Lebanon following air strikes which destroyed dozens of the militant group’s launchers.

Israel announced this week it was shifting its war objectives to its northern border with Lebanon.

Speaking to troops on Wednesday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: “Hezbollah will pay an increasing price” as Israel tries to “ensure the safe return” of its citizens to border areas.

“We are at the start of a new phase in the war,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile delayed his scheduled departure to the United States, where he is due to address the UN General Assembly, by a day, with an official citing the situation on the northern front.

Earlier Friday, Hezbollah said it targeted at least six Israeli military bases with salvos of rockets after overnight bombardment that people in south Lebanon described as among the fiercest so far.

‘Fear of wider war’

Residents of Marjayoun, a Lebanese town close to the border, said the overnight bombardment was among the heaviest since the border clashes began last October.

“We were very scared, especially for my grandchildren,” said Nuha Abdo, 62. “We were moving them from one room to another.”

Clothing store owner Elie Rmeih, 45, counted more than 50 strikes.

“It was a terrifying scene and unlike anything we have experienced since the escalation began.

“We live in fear of a wider war, you don’t know where to go.”

Calls for restraint

International mediators have been scrambling to stop the Gaza war from turning into an all-out regional conflict.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been scrambling to salvage efforts for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, called for restraint on all sides.

“We don’t want to see any escalatory actions by any party” that would endanger the goal of a Gaza ceasefire, he said.

Hamas’s October 7 attacks that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Out of 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures as reliable.

As the world’s attention focuses on the deadly war in Gaza, less than 80 miles away scores of Palestinian teens have been killed, shot, and arrested in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has waged a monthslong crackdown.

More than 150 teens and children 17 or younger have been killed in the embattled territory since Hamas’ brutal attack on communities in southern Israel set off the war last October. Most died in nearly daily raids by the Israeli army that Amnesty International says have used disproportionate and unlawful force.

Amjad Hamadneh lost son Mahmoud when the 15-year-old’s school dismissed students at the start of a May raid.

“He didn’t do anything. He didn’t make a single mistake,” says Amjad Hamadneh, whose son, a buzz-cut devotee of computer games, was one of two teens killed that morning by a sniper.

Also Read: Indian-origin Israeli soldier killed amid escalating tensions in West Bank

“If he’d been a freedom fighter or was carrying a weapon, I would not be so emotional,” says his father, an unemployed construction worker. “But he was taken just as easily as water going down your throat. He only had his books and a pencil case.”

It is clear from statements by the Israeli military, insurgents and families in the West Bank that a number of the Palestinian teens killed in recent months were members of militant groups.

Many others were killed during protests or when they or someone nearby threw rocks or homemade explosives at military vehicles. Still others appear to have been random targets. Taken together, the killings raise troubling questions about the devaluation of young lives in pursuit of security and autonomy.

The Israeli army said in a statement to The Associated Press that it has stepped up raids since Oct. 7 to apprehend militants suspected of carrying out attacks in the West Bank and that “the absolute majority of those killed during this period were armed or involved in terrorist activities at the time of the incident.”

On the June afternoon that 17-year-old Issa Jallad was killed, video from a neighbor’s security camera shows, he was on a friend’s motorbike with an Israeli armored vehicle in close pursuit. Days later, a poster outside his family’s home in Jenin showed him cradling an assault rifle and declared him a holy warrior.

But the grainy tape, reviewed by AP days after the raid, and others from nearby cameras do not explain where he fit in the conflict. The Israeli army said that its soldiers had spotted two militants handling a powerful explosive device. When the pair tried to flee, troops opened fire and “neutralized them.”

But an Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, says its review of multiple security camera videos showed Jallad and his friend posed no threat.

“We all expected to be in this situation,” said the teen’s brother, Mousa Jallad. “It could happen to any of us.”

Jenin’s refugee camp has long been notorious as a hotbed of Palestinian militancy, raided repeatedly by Israeli forces who have occupied the West Bank since seizing control in their 1967 war with neighboring Arab States.

The embattled territory was already seeing deadly clashes before the war began. But Israeli forces, which police about 3 million Palestinians while assigned to protect 500,000 Jewish settlers, has significantly stepped up raids in the months since.

Youths represent almost a quarter of the nearly 700 Palestinians slain in the West Bank since the war began, the most since the violent uprising known as the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. More than 20 Israeli civilians and soldiers have been killed in the territory since October.

A military spokesman said the Israeli army makes great efforts to avoid harming civilians during raids and “does not target civilians, period.” He said human rights groups focus on a few outlier cases.

Military operations in the West Bank are fraught because forces are pursuing militants, many in their teens, who often hide among the civilian population, said the spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani.

“In many cases many of them are 15, 16 years old who are not wearing uniforms and might surprise you with a gun, with a knife,” he said.

Critics say the crackdown is shaped by retribution, not only military strategy.

When sirens erupted at the start of the May raid, Amjad Hamadneh says, he called Mahmoud on his cellphone and was relieved to hear that the brothers had reached their school. But then Mahmoud’s twin brother, Ahmed, called back to say that the principal had dismissed classes. As students poured into the street, the brothers were separated in the chaos.

Four bullets hit Mr. Mahmoud as he fled, and another pierced his skull. He was the third student from his school killed in a raid since the war began.

A former classmate, Osama Hajir, who had dropped out of school to work, was also killed, along with a teacher from a nearby school and a doctor from the hospital down the street.

“Now when I hear the sound of sirens I go to my room and stay there,” says Karam Miazneh, another classmate, who was shot during the raid but survived. “I’m still in fear that they will come to shoot me and kill me.”

Immediately after the May raid, a spokesman for the army said it had carried out the operation with Israeli border police and the country’s internal security agency, destroying an explosive device laboratory and other structures used by militants. But police recently declined to comment, and three weeks after the AP asked the military to answer questions about the May raid, an army spokesman said he was unable to comment until he could confer with police.

When Amjad Hamadneh heard his son had been wounded, he sped through Jenin’s twisting streets, drawing gunfire as he neared the hospital. But Mahmoud was already gone.

Nearby, Osama’s father, Muhamad, broke down as he leaned over his son’s body. Months earlier he’d snapped a photo of the smiling teen beside graffiti touting Jenin as “the factory of men,” tirelessly cranking out fighters in the resistance against Israel. Now, he pressed that same, still-smooth face between his hands.

“Oh, my son. Oh, my son,” he sobbed. “My beautiful son.”

Since Mahmoud Hamadneh was killed, his siblings ask frequently to visit his grave. His younger sister now sleeps in his bed so her surviving brother, Ahmed, will not be in the room alone.

“I feel like I cannot breathe. We used to do everything together,” Ahmed says. His father listens closely, despairing later that such grief could drive the teen into militancy. If the risk is so clear to a Palestinian father, he says, why don’t Israeli soldiers see it?

“They think that if they kill us that people will be afraid and not do anything,” he says. “But when the Israelis kill someone, 10 fighters will be created in his place.”

People gather near a site hit by what security sources said was a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon July 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israel’s military said Tuesday it carried out a strike on Beirut targeting the militant commander allegedly behind the deaths of 12 children and teens in a rocket attack on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights over the weekend.

Israel has blamed the rocket attack on the Hezbollah militant group, which has denied any role in the Saturday attack. “Hezbollah crossed a red line,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant posted on the platform X shortly after Tuesday’s strike.

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately release a statement, but minutes after the strike sent a photo of the Prime Minister with his national security advisor and other officials.

A Hezbollah official and the group’s TV station said that an Israeli airstrike hit Hezbollah’s stronghold south of Beirut on Tuesday evening, causing damage.

The airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik damaged several buildings but it was not immediately clear if any Hezbollah official was hit, the Hezbollah official said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The strike hit an apartment building next to a hospital, collapsing half of the targeted building. The hospital sustained minor damages, while the surrounding streets were littered with debris and broken glass.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that the airstrike in the southern Beirut suburb was carried out with a drone that launched three rockets.

The last time Israel targeted Beirut was in January, when an airstrike killed a top Hamas official, Saleh Arouri. That strike was the first time Israel had hit Beirut since the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.

A view shows damage after what security sources said was a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, on July 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Israeli Army said on July 30 it had struck around 10 Hezbollah targets overnight in seven different areas of south Lebanon, killing one fighter from the Iran-backed militant group.

The Army also “struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility, terror infrastructure sites, military structures and a launcher in southern Lebanon”, the Army said.

The strikes came after a rocket fired from Lebanon hit a Druze Arab town in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Saturday and killed 12 children aged between 10 and 16.

The Druze, who follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam, are an Arabic-speaking community present in Israel, Lebanon and Syria, including the Golan.

On a visit to Majdal Shams on July 29, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would deliver a “severe response” to the strike.

Israel says the rocket that killed the children was an Iranian-made Falaq and was fired by its ally Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has denied responsibility for firing the rocket though it clamed multiple launches towards Israel on July 27.

Israeli forces and Hezbollah have been engaged in near-daily clashes along the border since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.

The violence has so far killed 22 soldiers and 24 civilians on the Israeli side, including in the Golan, according to Army figures.

At least 527 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, according to an AFP tally. Most have been fighters, but the toll includes at least 104 civilians.

The Gaza war broke out when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still captive in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 39,400 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry, which does not provide details of civilian and militant deaths.

Smoke rises above Lebanon, following an Israeli strike, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Israel’s border with Lebanon in northern Israel on May 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Official media in Lebanon said an Israeli strike on May 5 on a southern village killed four family members, with Hezbollah announcing retaliatory attacks, in the latest cross-border violence since the Gaza war erupted.

Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group have exchanged regular cross-border fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks, with Hamas ally Hezbollah stepping up its attacks on northern Israel, and the Israeli military striking deeper into Lebanese territory.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Sunday’s strike in Mais al-Jabal killed “four people from a single family”, reporting that the raid was carried out by Israeli aircraft.

It identified the dead as a man, a woman and their children aged 12 and 21, and said two other people were wounded.

A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the strike killed “four civilians”.

Mais al-Jabal municipality chief Abdelmoneim Shukair had earlier told AFP that three people were killed, saying they were a couple and their son.

The Israeli military said in a statement later Sunday that “this morning… fighter jets struck a military site in the area of Mais al-Jabal”, without providing further details.

More retaliatory fire

Hezbollah in a statement said it fired “dozens of Katyusha and Falaq rockets” at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel “in response to the horrific crime that the Israeli enemy committed in Mais al-Jabal”.

It later said it fired dozens more Katyusha rockets across the border “as part of the response” to the Mais al-Jabal strike, and claimed a string of other attacks on northern Israel, some in stated retaliation to the raid.

The Israeli army said in the statement that “approximately 40 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon… a number of which were intercepted.”

“No injuries were reported,” it said, adding the army “struck the sources of the fire”.

It also said “fighter jets struck Hezbollah military structures and terrorist infrastructure” in several areas of southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s NNA reported Israeli strikes on various locations in the country’s south.

Hezbollah has repeatedly declared that only a ceasefire in Gaza will end its attacks on Israel, which it says are in support of Gazans and Hamas.

Both the United States and France have made diplomatic efforts to calm tensions on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

In Lebanon, at least 390 people have been killed in nearly seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also more than 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.
| Photo Credit: MEA Briefing

India is concerned by the Israeli attack on the Iranian diplomatic premises in Syria on April 1, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement on April 4. “Distressed at the escalating tensions in West Asia and their potential to fuel further violence and instability”, New Delhi has urged all parties to avoid actions that go against “commonly accepted principles and norms of International Law”, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in his weekly media briefing.

Israel strikes Iranian embassy, Iran vows retaliation

Israeli air strikes destroyed the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Syria on April 1, killing and wounding everyone inside, Damascus said as Iranian state TV reported a Revolutionary Guards commander among the dead.

Britain-based war monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said eight people, including several Guards members, were killed when “Israeli missiles… destroyed the building of an annex to the Iranian embassy”.

Iranian state TV said among those killed was a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi.

Also read: A new low: On Israel’s Gaza war and the U.S. response

Iran and one of its key proxies on April 2 vowed to respond to the Israeli attack. Israel has repeatedly targeted military officials from Iran, which supports militant groups fighting Israel in Gaza, and along its border with Lebanon. Monday’s strike in Damascus signaled an escalation because it struck an Iranian diplomatic mission.

Iran’s official news agency IRNA said Tuesday that Iran relayed an important message to the United States late Monday and that it called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council. The message to Washington was delivered through a Swiss envoy in Tehran; Switzerland looks after U.S. interests in Iran.

(with inputs from agencies)