Iran’s envoy slammed for Israel posts

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has slammed Iran’s ambassador to Australia for declaring Israel should be wiped out while declining to back his removal from the country, as Israel braces for Iranian retaliation following the killing of Hamas’ political leader during a visit to Tehran.

Albanese said Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi had been ‘‘called in’’ for a rebuke for using social media to call Israel a ‘‘Zionist plague’’ and describe Hamas’ commitment to the ‘‘wiping out’’ of Israel by 2027 as a ‘‘heavenly and divine promise’’.

Albanese decried the comments as abhorrent, hateful and antisemitic while Foreign Minister Penny Wong labelled them repugnant and inflammatory.

‘‘‘We’ve made clear our view to the Iranian ambassador very clearly and unequivocally to send him a message that it’s entirely inappropriate for him to engage in that way,’’ Albanese said yesterday.

The opposition urged the government to go further and investigate whether Sadeghi’s comments breached Australia’s hate speech laws. ‘‘Calling it out as repugnant is good, but there is action required,’’ opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham told Sky News.

Wong said in a press conference in Washington: ‘‘We maintain a diplomatic relationship with Iran because we seek to further Australia’s interests. That is why we continue to engage [given] the importance of deescalation given the circumstances we face in the Middle East.’’

Liberal senator Claire Chandler said she had raised concerns about the ambassador’s inflammatory social media posts with Wong at Senate estimates hearings since last October. This included a post in which Sadeghi suggested Israelis could be relocated to Birobidzhan, a Jewish autonomous region near the Russia-China border.

As Israel braced for retaliatory attacks from Iran and its proxies, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Middle East had reached a ‘‘critical moment’’ as the US and other nations seek to avoid an all-out regional war.

‘‘We are engaged in intense diplomacy – pretty much ’round the clock – with a very simple message: All parties must refrain from escalation, all parties must take steps to ease tensions,’’ Blinken said.

US intelligence officials reportedly briefed President Joe Biden that Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel was likely to take place in two waves, one from Iran and the other by Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies in Lebanon.

Iran and Hezbollah were infuriated by last week’s killing of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh during a visit to Tehran and the killing of Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in Beirut. Israel has taken responsibility for the death of Shukr but not of Haniyeh.

‘‘These are dangerous times,’’ Albanese said, reflecting on the possibility of a wider war in the Middle East. ‘‘I reiterate my call for Australians … in Lebanon to come home while commercial flights are available, and reiterate with an exclamation mark that Australians shouldn’t continue to travel to Lebanon.’’

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called for the government to reexamine funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees after a UN investigation found nine employees were likely involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that led to an estimated 1200 being killed. All nine employees had been fired, the UN said.

‘‘It’s completely and utterly unacceptable that a UN agency would have employees involved in, or alleged to have been involved in, the October 7 tragedy,’’ Dutton said.

The government paused funding for UNRWA in January when the allegations of staff member involvement in the October 7 attacks emerged, but resumed funding in March, saying that no other agency could act as a substitute for vital humanitarian assistance.