GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Iran vowed at the United Nations on Monday that it would not submit to “lawless aggression”, saying 90 million citizens were in “grave danger” from US and Israeli strikes.

At the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where countries were discussing the rights situation in Iran, UN experts highlighted Tehran’s deadly crackdown on protesters in recent months and warned that repression would likely worsen amid the Middle East war.

Iran’s ambassador Ali Bahreini hit back, insisting the focus instead should be on the aggression against his country, “carried out by some of the most lawless and unscrupulous actors on the international stage”.

“The most urgent and fundamental human rights issue concerning Iran is the imminent threat to the lives of 90 million people whose lives are in immediate and grave danger under the shadow of reckless military aggression,” he told the council.

Bahreini said that if such “reckless militarism” was met with indifference, “Iran will most certainly not be the last country to suffer such treatment”.

On February 28, the US and Israel launched their war on Iran, that has seen the Islamic republic in return strike targets in multiple countries in the Middle East.

During the session on Iran’s record, Bahreini urged the UN’s top rights body to instead discuss the Iranian cultural heritage under “indiscriminate” attack and “the innocent children massacred at their school desks”.

Iran has accused the United States and Israel of conducting a deadly missile attack on a school in the southern city of Minab. Washington has said it is investigating the incident. AFP does not have access to the site.

The ambassador said more than 1,300 people had been killed in Iran and more than 7,000 injured since the US-Israeli strikes began.

“Under such circumstances, what exactly is Iran expected to do?” he asked, stating: “Iran is not a nation that submits to coercion, intimidation or lawless aggression.”

– Calls for negotiations –

The six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, plus Jordan, condemned Iran’s attacks on their territories, saying they endangered regional security and civilian lives, and “cannot be justified under any pretext”.

The United States and Israel have stopped participating in the Human Rights Council.

Russia condemned the US and Israel for “seeking to destroy this dissenting country” and urged them to “end their aggressive actions”.

China said it was “gravely concerned” by the strikes against Iran, condemned all attacks on civilians and urged all parties to “cease military operations immediately and return to dialogue”.

Britain said it wanted a “swift return to security and stability” and said Tehran must not “exploit conflict to inflict further violence on its people”.

France said a lasting diplomatic solution was necessary “to end the war and for Iran to stop being a threat to its neighbours and the entire international community”.

– Massive crackdown fears –

The UN Human Rights Council was holding an interactive dialogue between nations and the council’s special rapporteur on rights in Iran and its fact-finding mission on the country.

Special rapporteur Mai Sato said that the US-Israeli strikes “remain unlawful, no matter the assumed or stated objectives”.

She said Tehran’s deadly crackdown on the nationwide protests that began on December 28 — in which, in a conservative figure that may rise, “over 7,000 deaths have been reported by civil society” — had followed a “pattern of persecution” that long predated the uprising.

“No-one should have died for expressing grievances with the state,” she told the UN correspondents’ association.

Sato said that after last year’s US-Israeli attacks on Iran, repression in the country worsened, and if “the war ends with a weakened Islamic republic, I can totally see that there will be a very big crackdown”.

She said the war had “exacerbated” what was already a “critical human rights situation in the country”, that had worsened further still during the protests.