Israel Blames Iran for Ship Blast in Gulf 

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Saturday offered the first official response by Jerusalem to last week’s attack on an Israeli-owned container ship in the Gulf of Oman. Gantz said his “initial assessment” is that the Thursday explosion, which caused extensive damage to the ship and forced it to head back to its Saudi base, was the result of Iranian aggression. Israeli officials believe Iran-backed forces targeted the ship, which flies a Bahaman Island flag, with several missiles, in an attempt to exact revenge for last year’s assassination of its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which Tehran says Israel carried out. Reports in Israeli news outlets say the defense ministry’s position in Sunday’s Cabinet discussions will be to respond swiftly and militarily to the incident, possibly against Iranian targets in the region, namely Syria.