A new era of military provocations and retaliations has opened between Tehran and its regional rivals, after months of Iranian restraint. Monday 1er In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Tehran for the attack on an Israeli merchant ship in the Persian Gulf on Friday, signaling a possible aftershock to come. “It is clearly an Iranian operation, it is obvious”, he said, while Iran itself made little of it.
Sunday, the ultraconservative daily Kayhan, a regular bearer of semi-official messages and headed by a man appointed by the Supreme Leader, had asserted that “The attack on the ship was made by the axis of the resistance”, that is, the network of alliances led by Tehran in the region. In the Gulf of Oman, the ship was potentially within range of Houthi rebels in Yemen, allies of Tehran. But above all, this formulation preserved the possibility of denying a direct implication. On Monday morning, the spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry rejected Mr. Netanyahu’s accusation.
Having left the port of Eilat two weeks earlier, loaded with cars, the MV Helios-Ray had unloaded Wednesday at the Saudi port of Dammam, located on the eastern coast of the country, facing Iran, and was due to go to Singapore. It was flying the flag of the Bahamas and was not on the list of civilian Israeli ships to which Shabak, Home Intelligence, provides assistance. Since docked in Dubai, it showed signs of impact above the waterline. The doubt remained Monday as to whether it had been hit by a mine or by a missile that would have passed through its hull. In any case, according to defense analysts in the Israeli press, the attack appears to have been planned and carried out in such a way as to inflict limited damage – the 28 crew members are unharmed, none were Israeli.
“Axis of resistance”
This attack targets a fragile point: since the historic normalization of Israel’s relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in September 2020, commercial traffic between the port of Eilat and the Gulf has significantly increased. By attacking one of these ships, Tehran is signaling that this burgeoning economic relationship is within its reach. This is not the first time that Iran has attacked an Israeli civilian vessel sailing under a foreign flag, and Israel may “Contain the event”, noted Sunday the military correspondent of the daily Yediot Aharonot, Alex Fishman, that is, replicate in a limited way.
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