Iran’s Foreign Ministry “strongly dismissed” on Monday accusations raised by Israeli officials about the Islamic Republic’s responsibility for an attack on an Israel-owned ship in the Sea of Oman, calling them “symptoms of his [Netanyahu’s] morbid obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
An Israeli-owned ship sailing through the Persian Gulf was attacked and damaged last Thursday, an attack Israeli officials have blamed on Iran.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli broadcaster Kan 11 on Monday that “it was indeed an act by Iran, that’s clear.”
“Iran is the greatest enemy of Israel, I am determined to halt it. We are hitting it [Iran] in the entire region,” he said.
Minister of Defense Benny Gantz told Kan 11 on Saturday that “the location of the ship near Iran leads to the assessment that the Iranians are behind the operation. This is my estimate and we will continue to investigate it.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters in a press conference in Tehran on Monday that “the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman are our immediate area of security and we will not allow them [Israel] to intimidate others by these statements.”
He attacked Netanyahu personally by saying that he “is suffering from a mental illness.”
“These allegations are being made by the Quds occupying regime [Israel], and we not only strongly reject them, but we have also been monitoring all the actions made by the regime in security zone of Iran in the past few months, and we will give a response where it happens,” he added.
Israeli officials estimate that the attack was carried out by Iran as a signal to Israel, knowing that the ship is under Israeli ownership.
The officials further estimate that the Iranians did not want to sink the ship but sent a warning to Israel that it has the capability to do so.
The Israeli Air Force conducted airstrikes on Sunday night in Syria against Iranian targets, possibly a retaliatory strike for the Iranian sabotaging of the Israeli-owned boat.
Khatibzadeh further dismissed Netanyahu’s statements that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, saying that “this morbid obsessive-compulsive disorder of the Israeli Prime Minister towards Iran is nothing new. All this indicates a strange turmoil in the occupied territories and is the result of the adventurous behavior in and outside the occupied territories.”
“These blame-games are only meant to benefit the corrupt Zionist prime minister,” he added.