Tel Aviv, Israel: Israeli Defense Minister warned Thursday that his country was prepared to attack Iran, published a threat to the Islamic Republic after a fatal drone attack on the oil tanker blamed by His nation.
Comments by Benny Gantz came as Israeli lobby countries to act at the United Nations during last week’s attack on Mercer Street oil tankers that killed two people.
Tanker, hit Oman in the Arabian sea, managed by a company owned by Israeli billionaire.
The US and Britain also blamed Iran for the attack, but no country offered evidence or intelligence to support claims.
Iran, who along with his regional ally millitia has launched a similar drone attack, denied involvement.
Speaking to the YNET news website, Gantz responded whether Israel was ready to attack Iran bluntly “Yes.” “We are at the point where we need to take military action against Iran,” Gantz said.
“The world needs to take action against Iran now.” From Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh described the threat of Gantz as “another violation of the Law of Int’l” and “slanderous behavior” which allegedly originated from Israeli blind support for the West.
He was tweeted: “We declare this clearly: stupid action against Iran will be filled with a decisive response.
Don’t test us.” On Wednesday, in a letter to the UN Security Council, Iran’s deputy ambassador for the United Nations described Israel as “the main source instability and insecurity in the Middle East and so on for more than seven decades.
” “This regime has a long dark record in attacking commercial navigation and civil vessels,” Zahra Ershadi wrote.
“In less than two years, this regime has attacked more than 10 commercial vessels carrying oil goods and humanitarians intended for Syria.” Ershadi’s comments referred to the ongoing shadow war that was being bred in the middle water line since 2019 who had seen Iran and Western-Linked vessels attacked.
The latest provocation occurred earlier this week, when the hijacker stormed asphalt tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf of Oman, briefly seized the ship before leaving on Wednesday.
No one claimed responsibility for the incident, despite recording radio communication from the ship distributed with the Associated Press revealing one of the crew members who said that Iran was armed had climbed the asphalt daughter.
Responding to a request for comments, the United States Central Command, known as Centcom, blamed Iran on Thursday.
“We have a problem with forced seizures while the Asphalt Princess M / V by Iranian armed people,” said U.S.
Marg Air Force Nicole Ferrara, a Centcom spokesman.
“We are looking at the incident, but do not have an understanding of what the Iranians are doing now, or why they block this legitimate commercial ship transit.” Iran denied involvement in the incident, calling all maritime escalations recently in the region as “truly suspicious.” Last week’s attack on Mercer Street killed the Romanian captain of the ship and a member of the British crew who worked for Ambrey, a maritime security company.
In a statement on Thursday, Ambrey identified the victim as Adrian Underwood, a former soldier in the British Army who started in the company as a maritime security officer in 2020 before becoming a team leader.
“We continue to connect with the Adrian family to offer support at this sad and difficult time,” said John Thompson, Director of Management Ambrey.
The attack began a year after later President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear agreement with the world’s power, which saw Iran limit the enrichment of uranium in exchange for economic sanctions.
President Joe Biden said he was willing to join the agreement, but talking about the rescue of the agreement had stopped in Vienna.