Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, offered a Starlink satellite internet device to an Iranian diplomat at the UN General Assembly in New York, telling him to carry it back to Tehran, only for the diplomat to ignore him and decline the device.
"I thought it appropriate to give you the Starlink. It can be very useful for you to allow the Iranian people to get their freedom after what you did to them. So you want to take it and deliver it back to Iran," Danon said, addressing the diplomat directly," according to footage shared by Anadolu Agency.
"It can be very useful for you in Iran. We love the Iranian people and we pray for the regime change there. It will come that day," he added.
The device was the same one Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displayed during his address to the General Assembly on Wednesday, in which he said Starlink technology could help ordinary Iranians bypass state internet censorship.
Netanyahu offered to leave such devices for Iranian diplomats willing to defect.
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Owning a Starlink terminal is illegal in Iran and can carry a lengthy prison sentence, though tens of thousands of Iranians are believed to use the devices covertly to bypass government firewalls, particularly since authorities have periodically imposed near-total internet blackouts during periods of unrest.
The US has separately been reported to have expanded covert efforts this year to get thousands of Starlink units into the country to help residents stay connected.
The stunt comes against the backdrop of the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict, now in its seventh month since fighting escalated in February, with Israeli officials, including Danon, having repeatedly used UN press appearances to make pointed displays aimed at Tehran's leadership, including bringing debris from an Iranian attack drone to a stakeout earlier this year.
Israel has framed its campaign as targeting the Iranian regime and its nuclear and military capabilities rather than the Iranian public, a distinction Danon reiterated in his remarks to the diplomat.
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