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Israel blasts Russia for cooperating with Iran, accusing Israel of ‘barbarity’

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov had accused Israel of fighting “barbarically” and collectively punishing Gazans.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel’s United Nations ambassador blasted Russian criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza and against Iranian assets Tuesday by accusing Moscow of cooperating with the world’s leading sponsor of terror.

Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting, Gilad Erdan said in part, “As all the council members here know, Russia uses Iranian drones to kill civilians in Ukraine. Iranian terrorism will reach all of you, we all know that, even Russia, which itself cooperates with Iran.”

Moscow has gotten steadily closer to Iran as its war in Ukraine continues, with closer trade ties especially in the military sphere, since the West has banned all arms sales to Russia. The Russian armed forces use fleets of Iranian-made suicide UAVs against Ukrainian cities, and reportedly made a deal about 18 months ago with Tehran to produce Iranian-designed drones in Russia itself.

Ambassador Gilad Erdan was reacting to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s statements in an interview earlier that day with CBS News, in which he demanded that Israel stop “political assassinations” of Iranians in Syria. He specifically mentioned the deaths of several commanders in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps who were recently killed in alleged IDF missile attacks in Damascus.

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He had also condemned the way Israel was conducting the war that the Hamas massacres and atrocities had sparked on October 7, 2023.

While saying there was “no excuse [for the] barbarity of the 7th of October,” Lavrov immediately added, “I don’t think the fact that there is no justification for this is an excuse for a carte blanche for no less barbaric means of fighting.”

Lavrov also accused Israel of ignoring “international humanitarian norms” and applying “means of collective punishment” against the Gazans.

Unusually for Russia considering its current cold relations with the U.S., Lavrov agreed with the Biden administration at least one point to do with the Middle East, saying that “unless this injustice is corrected and the Palestinian state is created,” the result will just be more violence in the region.

Israel’s foreign ministry slammed the foreign minister’s comments on the war.

“Israel wholeheartedly rejects the outrageous words of Foreign Minister Lavrov,” it posted to X in response. “Israel is fighting to defend itself and its citizens against Hamas, a murderous terrorist organization that is worse than ISIS, which carried out a horrific massacre of over 1,200 Israeli men, women and children, kidnapped civilians from their homes, and still holds 136 hostages in Gaza, more than a hundred days later.

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“The Hamas terrorist organization continues to declare that it will return to attack Israeli citizens, commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it added.

A month ago, Lavrov had sounded a different note in trying to compare Israel’s fight against the terror organization to President Vladimir Putin’s stated goals in its war with Ukraine.

“By the way, Netanyahu said he wants to destroy Hamas; that sounds like demilitarization. And he said extremism in the Strip must be eliminated. Sounds like denazification,” he noted during an interview on a Russian news channel.

The West has rejected Moscow’s attempt to justify its almost two-year-old invasion of its smaller neighbor, characterizing it as an unjustifiable land grab and supporting Kyiv militarily and financially as it tries to throw the Russians out.