Tel Aviv: Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has blamed Iran for carrying out the deadly drone attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Oman last week.
“I declare unequivocally: Iran carried out the attack against the ship,” Bennett said while addressing a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
He added that Israel has intelligence evidence of Iran’s involvement in the attack on the oil tanker Mercer Street, reports Xinhua news agency.
Israel expects the international community to exert pressure on Iran that “made a serious mistake”, the Prime Minister said.
There is yet to be a responsibility claim for the attack. In a press conference on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh dismissed the Israeli allegations as “baseless”.
Zodiac Maritime, a London-based firm owned by the Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer, said in a statement on July 30 that the attack on its oil tanker Mercer Street the previous day killed two crew members, a Romanian and a Briton.
Iran and armed groups associated with it have been blamed by Israel for using drone attacks to target its ships in the Gulf in previous cases.
The latest incident marked the first time that such an attack resulted in fatalities.