TEHRAN – Iran’s Foreign Ministry has issued a sharp condemnation of the U.S. and Israel for committing some of the most severe violations of international humanitarian law in modern history through their ongoing military aggression against the Islamic Republic.
The statement, released Thursday on the 77th anniversary of the adoption of the Four Geneva Conventions, recalls that on August 12, 1949, the conventions established binding principles for armed conflict, including the distinction between military and civilian targets, proportionality, military necessity, and the prohibition of unnecessary suffering.
Common Article 1 of the conventions obliges all states parties to respect these rules “in all circumstances” and ensure their respect by others. These principles now form an integral part of customary international humanitarian law binding on every nation.
The Zionist regime, the ministry declared, remains the single greatest violator of international humanitarian law. Over the past eight decades it has perpetrated the most serious international crimes – war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity – in occupied Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and across West Asia.
The statement specifically identifies the Zionist regime’s aggressive operations against Iran in 2025 and 2026, carried out with the full complicity of the United States, as among the gravest violations since the conventions were adopted.
“The war crimes committed by the terrorist US army and the genocidal Zionist regime during their military aggression against Iran over the past year and a half have pushed the boundaries of savagery and barbarity,” the ministry said.
It cited specific atrocities: the massacre of students and teachers in Minab with Tomahawk missiles; the attack on the Lamerd stadium with cluster munitions on February 28, 2026; and the bombing of residential homes in Qeshm with one-ton bombs on July 30, 2026. These, it stressed, represent only a fraction of the thousands of war crimes inflicted on the Iranian people.
The ministry pointed to explicit statements by high-ranking American officials – including the president, the secretary of war, and the secretary of state – together with a repeated pattern of strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure, demonstrating clear intent to commit grave violations of the laws of armed conflict.
Attacks on hospitals, universities, schools, residential areas, bridges, airports, and fire stations, along with the deliberate killing of civilians, women, and children in places such as Minab, Lamerd, and Qeshm, fall squarely under the grave breaches listed in Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These include willful killing, the infliction of great suffering, and the extensive destruction of property.
Repeated admissions by U.S. officials of a policy of “no quarter, no mercy,” open threats to strike Iranian infrastructure, and rhetoric about “returning Iran to the Stone Age” provide irrefutable evidence of premeditated intent and a deliberate pattern of grave breaches under Article 147.
The ministry warned that the continued commission of these serious breaches by the United States and Israel, coupled with the inaction of the United Nations and states parties to the Geneva Conventions, has normalized violations of humanitarian law and fostered a culture of impunity for war crimes.
In a separate development, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told his Greek and Austrian counterparts that the European Union has no “moral standing” to lecture Iran on human rights, pointing to European governments’ double standards over Israel’s crimes in the region. He rejected recent EU statements alleging human rights violations in Iran.
“The European Union, due to its performance in the field of human rights, has no moral standing to lecture others,” he said.
Araghchi also took to X to censure France and other countries for preaching about human rights while supporting Israeli and US war crimes.
“Countries like France should stop lecturing the world about ‘human rights’ and international law. The hypocrisy is blatant and embarrassing,” he said. 
“Your backing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – and aggression against Iran – has destroyed whatever moral high ground you imagined you had.”