Iran is using the Star of David as target practice for missile tests

Israel’s envoy to the United Nations called practice ‘hateful and unacceptable’ in formal complaint to Security Council

An impact crater can clearly be seen in the satellite imagery provided to the UN by Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon on 28 June 2017

The Iranian military has used a Star of David, the symbol of the Jewish faith, as target practice for missile tests, the Israeli envoy to the UN has claimed.

“This use of the Star of David as target practice is hateful and unacceptable,” Danny Danon told the international body’s Security Council on Wednesday, while handing out satellite imagery allegedly showing the Iranian site.

The photographs showed the six pointed star which represents both Judaism and the Israeli state in what Mr Danon said was a ballistics missile testing ground. An impact crater could clearly be seen.

The holy star was used as a target for a mid-range Qiam ballistic missile test in December 2016, Mr Danon said in a formal complaint to the UN from the Mission of Israel.

“The missile launch is not only a direct violation of UNSCR 2231, but is also a clear evidence of Iran’s continued intention to harm the State of Israel,” Mr Danon told delegates, referencing the 2015 resolution which paved the way for lifting international sanctions on Iran in return for curbs to its nuclear programme.

“It is the Iranians who prop up the [Syrian President Bashar] Assad regime as hundreds of thousands are killed, finance the terrorists of Hezbollah as they threaten the citizens of Israel, and support extremists and tyrants throughout the Middle East and around the world,” he added.

The incident is not the first time there has been an anti-Semitic flavour to Iranian test strikes: in March 2016, two ballistic missiles were test fired, reportedly carrying the message ‘Israel must be wiped out’ written on the sides of the weapons in Hebrew.

The Islamic Republic has sworn the destruction of the Jewish state.

Iran conducted its first missile strike outside its own territory in 30 years earlier this month, hitting Isis positions in northern Syria as revenge for the 7 June suicide attacks in Tehran which killed 17 people.

The incidents at parliament and the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini were the first attacks on Iranian soil claimed by the Sunni group, which believes the Shia Islam mostly practised in Iran is heretical.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned at the time that any further attacks on Iran would result in more strikes.

Tehran is known to have carried out two ballistic missile tests so far this year. It claims the non-nuclear weapons not violate the landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers in 2015.