Iran strongly rejects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Tehran was behind an explosion on board an Israeli ship in the Gulf of Oman last week, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a televised news conference Monday .
“We strongly deny this allegation … the security of the Gulf of Persia is of paramount importance to Iran,” said Saeed Khatibzadeh.
Earlier Monday, Iran was accused by Netanyahu of attacking an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman last week.
Without offering any evidence to his claim, Netanyahu told Israeli public broadcaster KAN “of course it was an act by Iran, that’s clear.”
“Iran is Israel’s greatest enemy, I want to stop it. We are hitting it in the whole region,” Netanyahu said.
The mysterious explosion struck the Israeli-owned MV Helios Ray, a cargo ship rolling away with a Bahamian flag, as she was sailing out of the Middle East on her way to Singapore on Friday.
The crew was not damaged in the explosion, but the vessel held two holes on the side of its port and two on the side of the starboard just above the waterline, according to American defense officials.
The vessel arrived at the port of Dubai for repair work on Sunday, days after the explosion that revived security concerns in Mideast waterways amid increased tensions with Iran.
It is unclear what caused the explosion. The Helios Ray had released cars at various ports in the Gulf of Persia before the explosion forced its reversal. He went down in Dubai on Sunday for repairs and inspections.
In the past few days, the Israeli defense minister and the army chief had announced that they were responsible to Iran for the attack.
Overnight, Syrian state media reported on a series of Israeli airstrikes near Damascus, claiming that air defense systems had seized most of the missiles.
Israeli media reports said the alleged airstrikes were in line with Iran’s targets in response to the attack on a boat.
Israel has hit hundreds of Iranian targets in nearby Syria in recent years, and Netanyahu has reiterated that Israel will not accept Syria’s permanent military presence there.
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Servants of the holy graveyard Imam Reza carry the coffin of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in Mashhad, Iran
(Photo: Reuters )
Israeli military rejected comment. There was no immediate response from Iran to the Israeli authorities.
Iran has also blamed Israel for a series of recent attacks, including a mysterious explosion last summer that destroyed an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at its Natanz nuclear facility and killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a leading Iranian scientist who founded the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program two decades ago. Iran has once again vowed revenge on Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.
Iranian threats to retaliate have raised warnings in Israel following the country’s normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.