DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Recent allegations by Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji have raised tensions between Iran and Israel, with Owji accusing Israel of carrying out an attack on an Iranian natural gas pipeline last week. Owji claimed the attack caused multiple explosions along the pipeline, further intensifying the conflict between the two countries amid Israel’s recent war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has been blamed for a series of attacks targeting Tehran’s nuclear program, but has not acknowledged carrying out the attack on the gas pipeline. The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime foe of Iran, has not responded to the allegations.
The explosions on the natural gas pipeline, which occurred on Feb. 14, hit a pipeline running from Iran’s western Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province up north to cities on the Caspian Sea. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted Owji as saying, “The ‘explosion of the gas pipeline was an Israeli plot,’ adding that the enemy intended to disturb gas service in the provinces and put people’s gas distribution at risk.”
Owji did not provide any evidence to support his claims, but compared the attack to a series of unclaimed assaults on gas pipelines in 2011, around the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. These recent developments have added fuel to the ongoing tensions between Iran and Israel, which has carried out previous attacks targeting Iran’s nuclear program.
Meanwhile, tensions over Iran’s nuclear program are escalating as groups that Tehran is arming in the region – such as Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels – have launched attacks targeting Israel over the war in Gaza. The Houthis continue to attack commercial shipping in the region, prompting airstrikes from the United States and the United Kingdom.
Despite a month of U.S.-led airstrikes, the Houthi rebels remain capable of launching significant attacks, damaging a ship in a crucial strait. On Wednesday, ships in the Red Sea reported seeing an explosion off the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida in Yemen. The U.S. military’s Central Command acknowledged shooting down a Houthi bomb-carrying drone and targeted mobile anti-ship cruise missiles and a mobile anti-ship ballistic missile.
The U.S. State Department criticized the attacks on civilian cargo ships by the Houthis, stating that it has delayed humanitarian aid including food and medicine bound for Ethiopia, Sudan, and Yemen. In addition, a suspected Israeli strike killed two people in a neighborhood in Syria’s capital, Damascus, on Wednesday. This area has been previously targeted by likely Israeli strikes against members of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.