Israeli diplomats and officials have often brought poster boards as props to the United Nations, including images of the attacks on Oct. 7 and a bomb illustration to show Iranian enrichment. Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the global body, brought an actual engine and wing from an Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone to a press conference on Thursday.
“Let me make it clear. This is what we are facing,” he said, as he removed a white drape from a mechanical object with wires and a black drape from atop a drone wing.
“This is the engine and the wing of an Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone acquired by the watchdog United Against Nuclear Iran,” he told reporters. “Not a prop. Not a toy. A weapon.”
“Look at the wing,” he added. “Built to travel thousands of miles across borders. It can reach cities in Israel, in Europe and in a few months, even the U.S., carrying more than 100 pounds of explosives. Now imagine it aimed at your house, at your living room, at your child’s bedroom.”
“This is the terror that we are facing,” he said.
Speaking outside the U.N. Security Council chamber, the Israeli envoy added that “Iran has struck more Arab countries than Israel has in its entire existence.”
He named eight countries. “This is a regime going down and trying to set the entire region on fire as it falls,” Danon said.
Touting the successes of the U.S.-Israeli military operation so far, the envoy warned that “this effort is far from over.”
“I think diplomacy will come into action. Not yet,” he said. “We have to dismantle the machine of terror that they built for so many years. It will not last forever. It will not be months. It will be weeks or days, but we need to continue.”
As the Islamic Republic attacks more countries and draws them into the conflict directly or indirectly, Danon denounced his counterpart from Tehran for attempting to convince reporters that the Iranian regime is only targeting military assets.
“That is not just inaccurate. It is a deliberate lie,” he said, noting that Iran has hit airports, hotels and other civilian sites across the region.
“That is indiscriminate aggression,” he said.
Danon praised the Lebanese government for “very strong, bold statements” against the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group that still controls points of the southern part of the country and which joined its patron earlier this week in the fight against Israel by firing off rockets to the south.
“But they have to take action against Hezbollah,” Danon said of the Lebanese government.
“I think our message is very clear,” he said. “We will find the operatives of Hezbollah and the Iranian regime representatives in Lebanon, and we will eliminate them.”
