Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran Monday [March 1] of attacking an Israeli-owned, Bahamian-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman on Friday [February 26], as an Israeli air strike hit bases of Iran-backed forces south of the Syrian capital Damascus around midnight on Sunday.

“It was indeed an act by Iran, that’s clear,” Netanyahu told Israeli public broadcaster Kan, without offering evidence. In 2019 Tehran denied the accusations that it attacked several oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.

“Iran is the greatest enemy of Israel, I am determined to halt it. We are hitting it in the entire region,” Netanyahu said, just hours after the strikes in Syria. Kan quoted an Israeli security official that the air strike was in response to the attack on the Israeli vessel, which was hit by an explosion, and is now in the United Arab Emirates for damage assessment.

The MV Helios Ray, a roll-on, roll-off vehicle cargo ship, was sailing out of the Middle East to Singapore on Friday. The crew was unharmed, but the vessel sustained two holes on its port side and two on its starboard side just above the waterline, according to American defense officials.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh said Monday that Tehran rejected Israel’s claim that it was behind the incident and stressed that “the security of the Persian Gulf is extremely important for Iran.”

A fresh wave of tension has hit the region as the new United States administration has begun efforts to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018 and launched a ‘maximum pressure’ campaign to force Iran to accept a broad range of demands.

Iran, under severe economic pressure due to the US sanctions, is demanding that President Joe Biden roll back the Trump-era sanctions and come back into compliance with the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). The White House says Iran must first reverse steps it has taken since 2019 expanding its nuclear program beyond JCPOA limits.

Nearly six weeks into the Biden administration, there is no agreement on a framework for progress, which was called for in December by Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Tehran has proposed the US join talks within the JCPOA framework as a ‘guest,’ while the US has proposed informal talks with the three European JCPOA signatories, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Absent of discussions, analyst speculate on the ‘messages’ sent by rocket attacks against US forces by Iranian allies in Iraq or the MV Helios Ray explosion. Biden referred to Friday’s US strike on Iran-allied Iraqi militia - varying reports gave a death toll from one to 17 - as telling Iran it “cannot act with impunity,” while John Kirkby, Pentagon chief spokesman, called it an “unambiguous message.”

In recent days, Israel’s defense minister and army chief had both indicated they held Iran responsible for the damage to the cargo ship. It is not clear whether it was a rocket attack, or mines as Iran was suspected of using in the 2019 tanker explosions.

Netanyahu, an opponent of the JPCOA and strong supporter of Trump’s approach, revealed to Kan pragmatism towards the new US administration: “It is most important that Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, with or without an agreement, this I also told to my friend Biden.”

Israel has struck hundreds of Iranian targets in Syria in recent years, and Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel will not accept an Iranian military presence there. Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group allied to Tehran, have alongside Russia provided military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the more than decade-long Syrian war.