Israel’s Defense Minister: We’re Not Always to Blame for Attacks on Iran

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz openly referred to recent mysterious explosions, fires and gas leaks in Iran, telling Army Radio on Sunday that “not every event that happens [there] is connected to us.” On Saturday, an explosion reportedly ripped through a power facility in southwestern Iran, while in the southeast, a gas leak sickened dozens of workers at a petrochemical plant. On Thursday, a mysterious blaze broke out at a centrifuge facility located on the grounds of the Natanz nuclear research complex. That incident came a few days after Tehran was rocked by mysterious explosions at a military area just to the east of the city believed to house rockets in deep underground bunkers and tunnels. Following those blasts, satellite images showed large ground areas that appeared to have been blackened by fire. “All those systems are complex,” Gantz said during the Sunday radio interview. “[The Iranians] have very high safety constraints and I’m not sure they always know how to maintain them.” Israel and Iran apparently have been locked in a cyber-battle in recent months, with the Jewish state blaming the Islamic Republic for trying to hack into its drinking-water supply and cause the introduction of too much chlorine, and Israel being blamed for a major cyberattack that paralyzed Shahid Rajaee, one of Iran’s main ports.