JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday accused Iran of attacking an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman last week, a mysterious explosion that has raised security concerns in the region.
Without giving any evidence of his claim, Netanyahu told Israeli public broadcaster Kan that “it was indeed an act of Iran, it is clear.”
“Iran is Israel’s biggest enemy, I am determined to stop it. We are hitting him all over the region, “Netanyahu said. Iran promptly denied the allegations.
The blast struck Israel-owned MV Helios Ray, a Bahamian-flagged rolling cargo ship, while sailing from the Middle East en route to Singapore on Friday. The crew was unharmed, but the ship suffered two holes on its port side and two on the starboard side just above the waterline, according to US defense officials.
The ship arrived in the port of Dubai on Sunday for repairs, a few days after the explosion that revived security concerns on waterways in the Middle East, amid heightened tensions with Iran.
Iran has tried to pressure the US to lift sanctions on Tehran, as the administration of President Joe Biden is considering the option of returning to negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. Biden has repeatedly said that the US will return to the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that his predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew in 2018 only after Iran restored full compliance with the agreement.
The explosion on the Israeli-owned ship was recalled last week in the tense summer of 2019, when the US military accused Iran of attacking several oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman with spot mines, designed to be magnetically attached to the ship’s hull. The Gulf of Oman leads through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a vital passage for the world’s oil supply. Tehran has denied allegations that it was behind the mine attacks.
It remains unclear what caused Friday’s Helios explosion. The ship unloaded cars in various ports in the Persian Gulf before the explosion forced it to reverse course. Over the weekend, the Israeli defense minister and the army chief both said they held Iran responsible for what they said was an attack on the ship.
Iran responded to Netanyahu’s statement, saying it “strongly rejected” the claim that it was behind the attack. In a press briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Netanyahu was “obsessed with Iran” and described his accusations as “falsification of fear”.
Khatibzadeh also accused Israel of taking “suspicious action in the region” against Iran in recent months to undermine the 2015 nuclear deal, without drafting it, and promised that Iran would respond.
“Israel is well aware that our response to national security has always been fierce and accurate,” he said.
Overnight, Syrian state media reported a series of alleged Israeli airstrikes near Damascus, saying air defense systems intercepted most of the missiles. Israeli media reports said the alleged airstrikes were aimed at Iranian targets in response to the ship’s attack.
Israel has hit hundreds of Iranian targets in neighboring Syria in recent years, and Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Israel will not accept a permanent Iranian military presence there. Iran and its Lebanese mandate Hezbollah have offered military support to Syrian President Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war for more than a decade.
The Israeli military declined to comment.
Iran has blamed Israel for a recent series of attacks, including another mysterious explosion last summer that destroyed an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at the Natanz nuclear facility and the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top Iranian scientist who founded the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear program. decades ago. Iran has repeatedly vowed to avenge the killing of Fakhrizadeh.
“It is most important that Iran does not have nuclear weapons, with or without an agreement, that’s what I told my friend Biden,” Netanyahu said on Monday.
Iran’s threats of retaliation have raised alarm in Israel since the signing of normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in September.
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Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre of Dubai, UAE, and Nasser Karimi of Tehran, Iran, contributed to the report.