Without providing any evidence, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Friday that an “initial assessment” of a transport ship sailing in the Gulf of Oman that was hit with a blast to its hull was the work of Iran.
“Iran is looking to hit Israeli infrastructure and Israeli citizens. The location of the ship in relatively close proximity to Iran raises the notion, the assessment, that it is the Iranians,” he said.
The Israeli-owned and Bahamian-flagged ship, MV Helios Ray, was held at a dry dock in Dubai for repairs, the Associated Press reported. No crew members were hurt in the explosion. The report, citing American defense officials, said the explosion was above water level and ripped into the ship’s starboard and port sides.
The report said the ship had just unloaded cars within the Persian Gulf and was headed toward Singapore when the blast occurred. An Iranian official theorized that the ship may have been on a spying mission.
Doubling Down
Also without providing evidence, yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of attacking the ship. “Iran is the greatest enemy of Israel, I am determined to halt it. We are hitting it in the entire region,” Netanyahu said.
In response to Netanyahu’s charges, Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman, told reporters in a press conference in Tehran on Monday:
“The occupying regime is the root cause of all insecurities and instabilities, and these projections are fully goal-oriented.
The Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman are our immediate areas of security and we will not allow them to intimidate others by these statements. The Prime Minister of the Zionist regime is suffering from a mental illness. This regime knows that in our security sphere, our response has been precise and strong.”
According to the Fars News Agency, Khatibzadeh also strongly dismissed Netanyahu’s allegations that Iran seeks to acquire nuclear weapons. He said, “This morbid obsessive-compulsive disorder of the Israeli Prime Minister towards Iran is nothing new.”
TREND FORECAST: As Gerald Celente has long noted and history shows, “When all else fails, they take you to war.” We had forecast that tensions would build in the Middle East with Iran being a main target of Israel.
We have also reported that since November 2019, Netanyahu has been under the pressure of a criminal indictment on charges of fraud and bribery, and he has twice failed in previous elections to put together a winning coalition.
This month, Israel will hold its fourth national election in less than two years.
This past summer, thousands of Israelis took to the streets, primarily in Jerusalem near Netanyahu’s residence, demanding he step down. As tensions in the region flare up, none of this is being reported in the mainstream media.
