In a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres, President of the UN Security Council Jamal Fares Alrowaiei, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Volker Türk, and President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Mirjana Spoljaric Egger on April 4, Saeed Iravani detailed a series of recent US-Israeli strikes, including attacks on the Karaj-Tehran B1 Bridge, the Mahshahr Petrochemical Special Economic Zone, and industrial facilities in southern Iran.
He described the incidents as deliberate and premeditated acts targeting civilian infrastructure essential to daily life, accusing Washington and Tel Aviv of committing grave breaches of international humanitarian law and calling for immediate condemnation and accountability from the international community.
What follows is the text of the letters:
In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful
Excellency,
With a sense of utmost urgency, and further to our previous communications, I wish to bring to the attention of Your Excellency and the members of the Security Council the ongoing and newly cases of grave breaches of international humanitarian law, acts of terrorism and war crimes perpetrated by the United States and the Israeli regime through the deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of civilian and critical infrastructure in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
On 1 April 2026, United States airstrikes deliberately targeted the Karaj-Tehran B1 Bridge, a major civilian transportation artery connecting Tehran to its western suburbs. This critical infrastructure was struck in multiple waves, resulting in its partial destruction and causing significant civilian casualties. The attack severely disrupted a vital civilian transit corridor and inflicted extensive damage on surrounding residential areas, overwhelming civil emergency services.
This heinous crime, openly acknowledged by the President of the United States in a public social media statement, was followed, on 4 April 2026, by deliberate strikes on the Mahshahr Petrochemical Special Economic Zone in Khuzestan-a hub of Iran's industrial and energy infrastructure employing a large civilian workforce. Initial reports confirm that multiple petrochemical facilities were hit, resulting in the emission of hazardous chemical substances, causing injuries and raising serious concerns regarding humanitarian and environmental consequences. On the same day, 4 April 2026, a cement factory in Bandar Khamir, Hormozgan Province a critical civilian industrial facility essential to the livelihoods of local communities was also cowardly bombed.
These unlawful attacks were neither incidental nor spontaneous. They were preceded and accompanied by repeated, explicit and public threats made by the President of the United States to deliberately target Iran's civilian and critical infrastructure. On 1 April 2026, he brazenly threatened to "bring Iran back to the Stone Age" and to strike "each and every one of their electric generating plants ... very hard and probably simultaneously". These statements followed earlier threats on 30 March 2026 to "blow up and completely obliterate" Iran's critical infrastructure, including power plants, oil facilities, Kharg Island and desalination installations, as well as statements on 21 March 2026 threatening to "hit and obliterate" Iran's power plants.
Such horrible statements constitute direct and public incitement to commit war crimes and provide compelling evidence of intent, a central element in establishing individual criminal responsibility under international law.
The explicit, deliberate and systematic targeting of civilians and civilian objects, as well as the destruction of infrastructure essential to the survival of the civilian population—including electricity, water and energy systems, and other critical civilian facilities constitutes a war crime and a blatant act of State terrorism, intended to terrorise and severely harm civilians. Such horrific and barbaric acts represent a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and underscore the criminal intent of those responsible to inflict widespread civilian suffering.
In light of the foregoing, and fully recognising the severe environmental devastation, widespread civilian harm and catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would inevitably result from such deliberate and unlawful acts, which constitute clear war crimes, the Islamic Republic of Iran calls upon the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Security Council, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Committee of the Red Cross and all Member States of the United Nations to fulfil their legal and moral obligations by:
1. Unreservedly and unequivocally condemn these deliberate and atrocious acts constituting war crimes and State terrorism targeting civilian infrastructure and objects essential to the survival of the civilian population, which amount to gross violations of international humanitarian law, as well as flagrant breaches of all relevant Security Council resolutions on the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure during armed conflicts, including those that the United States itself has previously voted in favour of; and
2. Take immediate, decisive and concrete measures to halt the ongoing criminal and unlawful acts of the United States and the Israeli regime, and to ensure that all those responsible are held fully accountable under international law, including the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the Israeli regime, for deliberately pursuing policies that result in, and for the commission of, war crimes and acts of State terrorism targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Silence or inaction in the face of such egregious violations will gravely undermine the integrity of international law, erode the foundations of the Charter of the United Nations, and embolden further acts of aggression, with consequences that will extend far beyond the region.
I should be grateful if you would have the present letter circulated as an official document of the Security Council.
Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.