SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iran said on Monday it strongly rejects claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Tehran was behind an explosion aboard an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf on Friday.
The ship, a vehicle-carrier named MV Helios Ray, suffered an explosion in the Gulf of Oman between Thursday and Friday morning. A U.S. defense official in Washington said the blast had left holes above the waterline in both sides of the hull.
Netanyahu blamed Iran earlier on Monday for the blast but sidestepped a question on whether Israel would retaliate, according to Reuters. “This was indeed an operation by Iran. That is clear,” he told Kan radio.
“We strongly reject this accusation… the security of the Persian Gulf is extremely important for Iran,” spokesman of Iran’s foreign ministry Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a press conference.
“The source of this accusation itself shows how invalid [the claim] is,” he added.
He added that Netanyahu was suffering from “an obsession with Iran”.
On Saturday, Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz said his “initial assessment” was that Iran was responsible for an explosion on an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman.
“Iran is looking to hit Israeli infrastructure and Israeli citizens,” Gantz told the public broadcaster Kan. “The location of the ship in relative close proximity to Iran raises the notion, the assessment, that it is the Iranians.”
The ship is owned by a Tel Aviv company called Ray Shipping through a company registered in the Isle of Man, according to a U.N. shipping database.
Tensions have risen in the Gulf region since the United States reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018 after then-president Donald Trump withdrew Washington from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers.
Washington has blamed Iran for a number of attacks on shipping in strategic Gulf waters, notably on four vessels, including two Saudi oil tankers, in May 2019. Iran has denied carrying out those attacks.
