Netanyahu blames Iran for recent Hezbollah attacks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday at a memorial ceremony for former prime minister Ariel Sharon that Iran is ultimately responsible for the previous day’s attack on IDF vehicles that resulted in the deaths of two soldiers.

The vehicles were hit by five Kornet guided anti-tank missiles fired by Hezbollah operatives near Ghajar, on a civilian road near the border with Lebanon. The two soldiers were later identified as company commander Major Yochai Kalengel and Sgt. Dor Nini. Seven soldiers were injured in the attack.

The attack was the latest incident in a recent escalation on Israel’s northern border that began with an alleged Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah convoy that killed 12 operatives and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members, including an Iranian general, near Quneitra, Syria.

Hezbollah in turn peppered the Golan Heights with rocket fire, which closed the Mount Hermon ski resort to tourists and sent residents running to their bomb shelters. The IDF responded to the attacks with artillery strikes in Syria and southern Lebanon.

The tension along Israel’s Lebanese and Syrian borders appeared to be headed toward a respite on Thursday, as Hezbollah conveyed to Israel through the UN force in southern Lebanon that the group was uninterested in escalating the hostilities.

During his speech Thursday, Netanyahu also discussed the ongoing talks between Iran and the six world powers known as the P5+1 over the Iranian nuclear program. The prime minister has warned that an agreement that doesn’t curtail entirely Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium could allow the Islamic Republic to continue to develop nuclear weapons.

“We strongly oppose this agreement,” the prime minister said. “We will continue to defend ourselves against all threats, near and far alike.”

The prime minister’s remarks come amid heightened tensions with US President Barack Obama’s administration ahead of Netanyahu’s planned address to a joint session of Congress set for March 3, two weeks before the Israeli national elections. Netanyahu is set to urge lawmakers to slap a new round of sanctions on Iran to force it to comply with international standards, a move Obama strongly opposes and has vowed to veto.

At the service in the Sharon family’s Sycamore Ranch in southern Israel, Netanyahu said that Sharon “well understood the character of the Iranian regime.”

On Tuesday, Netanyahu said that Iran was “planning a new genocide” against the Jewish people.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.