Israel is weighing several means to retaliate against Iran after its strike on an oil tanker that was operated by an Israeli-owned company. The strike killed two, reports Israeli television.
Channel 12 reported that Israel has submitted intelligence data to the United States and the UK proving that Iran was behind the attack.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi held meetings during the weekend and discussed several plans to retaliate, according to the anonymous report,. The report also states that the US and England are also considering a response.
The incident
The Liberian-flagged oil tanker Mercer Street came under attack just northeast of the Omani island of Masirah in the Arabian Sea on Thursday night. The ship is Japanese-owned but is run by London-based Zodiac Management, part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group.
“At the time of the incident the vessel was in the northern Indian Ocean, traveling from Dar es Salaam to Fujairah with no cargo onboard,” the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said in a statement, noting that piracy was not suspected.
Earlier on Thursday, the British military group had said it was investigating another unexplained incident in the same area, but it did not elaborate.
Other Israel-linked ships have been targeted in recent months. In March, an Israeli-owned container ship named the LORI was in the Arabian Sea, sailing from Tanzania to India, when it was hit by a small missile. Israeli security sources believe the launch was a deliberate Iranian attack. Officials believe the attack was in retaliation for an attack on an Iranian-owned ship near the coast of Syria, which the Iranian government attributed to Israel. In February, another Israeli-owned cargo ship, a vehicle-carrier named MV Helios Ray, suffered a mysterious explosion while sailing in the Gulf of Oman.
The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Israel has targeted at least 12 ships bound for Syria, though the IDF has not confirmed or denied this report.
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