Iran warns US not to test 'resolve to defend our land'

TEHRAN, Mar 25 (AFP/Reuters): Iran's powerful parliament speaker on Wednesday warned Washington not to test the Islamic republic's determination to defend its territory after the United States was reported to be sending more troops to the Middle East.
"We are closely monitoring all US movements in the region, especially troop deployments. What the generals have broke, the soldiers can't fix; instead, they will fall victim to (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's delusions," said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in an X post in English.
"Do not test our resolve to defend our land."
UN rights council set to hold
urgent debate Friday on
Iran school strike
The UN Human Rights Council is ready to hold a second urgent debate this week linked to the Middle East war, focused on a deadly strike on an Iranian school.
Council president Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro told the United Nations' top rights body that the council bureau had examined a request by Iran, China and Cuba for an urgent debate in connection with the airstrike on a school in the southern city of Minab on the first day of the war on February 28, and "concluded that said urgent debate could be accommodated on Friday".
The council would be asked to validate the decision later Wednesday, he said.
Israeli strikes kill 9
in south Lebanon
Lebanese state media reported on Wednesday that Israeli strikes killed at least six people in a town and a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern Sidon area, and three more in another town.
Israel has stepped up its campaign against Tehran-backed militant group Hezbollah, whose rocket attacks on March 2 pulled Lebanon into the regional war, triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Citing the health ministry, Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) said four people were killed in an "Israeli enemy raid" on the town of Adloun, and another two in a strike on an apartment in the Mieh Mieh refugee camp that left four wounded.
In another area of southern Lebanon, the NNA earlier said an Israeli raid on the town of Habboush killed at least three people and wounded 18 others.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not immediately comment on the reported strikes.
In a statement, the military said ground troops in southern Lebanon "dismantled a weapons storage facility", and the air force killed "several terrorists" who had fled the targeted site.
Iranian strikes pose 'existential threat', Gulf states tell UN
Gulf Arab states told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday they face an existential threat from Iranian attacks on their infrastructure, which the U.N. rights chief said might constitute war crimes.
The nearly month-long U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has sparked large-scale Iranian retaliation in the form of drone and missile strikes on energy and civilian infrastructure in Gulf countries, killing civilians and driving up oil prices.
"We are seeing an existential threat to international and regional security. This aggressive approach is undermining international law and sovereignty," Kuwait's ambassador Naser Abdullah H. M. Alhayen told the Geneva-based council.