“Innocent civilians pay the price for escalation” said Humza Yousaf.
The first minister has condemned Iran’s attack on Israel, labelling it an “extremely worrying development.”
Humza Yousaf said that all parties in the Middle East should abide by UN Security Council resolutions and implement an immediate ceasefire.
He added that “violence begets violence” and that civilians in the region had already “paid far too high a price”.
The first minister stood by his calls to end UK arms sales to Israel.
Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles towards Israel, the country’s military said. Other projectiles were fired from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Tehran’s attack is a retaliation for an Israeli strike that killed Iranian military commanders in Damascus earlier this month. But it also comes after months of warfare between Israel and Hamas after the group attacked Israel on 7 October.
Mr Yousaf has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in the region and has criticised Israel’s response to Hamas’s attacks on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 253 others were taken hostage.
Israel’s military launched an air and ground campaign in the Gaza Strip. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in that campaign, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
British involvement
Speaking on Sunday morning, Mr Yousaf said the “vast majority” of those killed in the conflict in Gaza were innocent women and children. He said that Israel had an advanced military and could defend itself without UK-made arms.
Mr Yousaf urged against escalation in the region.
“It’s not men in their suits in governments that pay the price for that escalation, it is innocent civilians.” he said.
The UK government has confirmed that RAF fighter jets took part in the defence of Israel, shooting down a number of drones fired from Iran.
Additional RAF jets were deployed over Iraq and Syria and not Israel, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.
Mr Yousaf said he has requested a briefing on the situation from the UK government but had not yet received one. He added that he would have “concerns” about UK military involvement in the Middle East.
“Our track record in that region is not a particularly good one,” he said. Mr Yousaf said that he did not want to see “ripples” of conflict in the Middle East being felt in communities in Scotland but conceded that his calls for a ceasefire in the region have “fallen on deaf ears”.
The first minister’s in-laws were trapped in Gaza for almost a month at the start of the conflict, eventually making it out of Gaza and into Egypt via the Rafah crossing.
