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Staff at Israel's embassies in India and Georgia were targeted on February 13, the foreign ministry reported. (Daniel Berehulak /Getty Images)
A bomb was set off at the Israeli Embassy in India, leaving one woman injured, and another bomb was diffused at the country’s embassy in Georgia on Monday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blaming them on Iran and its ally Hezbollah.
“Iran is behind these attacks; it is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world,” Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that Tehran and Lebanon-based Hezbollah were behind terror plots targeting Jews in other countries, including Thailand, Azerbaijan.
“In each instance we succeeded in foiling the attacks in cooperation with local authorities,” he said.
“The government of Israel and the security services will continue to act together with local security forces against such acts of terrorism,” Netanyahu added. “We will continue to take strong and systematic, yet patient, action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.”
The bombing on Monday comes one day after the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyah, who was a leader in Hezbollah, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the U.K., Canada, and other Western powers. Hezbollah has blamed Mughniyah’s death on Israel.
Israel had sent out a warning to its embassies in several countries, saying that there may be an attack on the anniversary of Mughniyah’s death. Mughniyah, who was killed in a car bomb in Damascus in 2008, was one of the most wanted terrorists by the United States and Israel and was connected to several attacks on Israeli and American targets.
At the embassy in New Delhi, the wife of an Israeli diplomat was injured in the blast and the car, which appears to have been a Toyota Prius, was destroyed, according to Haaretz.
In the incident in Tbilisi, an embassy worker alerted police after finding a small plastic bag attached to a car that was assigned to the Israeli envoy to Georgia, according to the newspaper. Police discovered that the bag containing an explosive device made from a hand grenade.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the publication that Israel will not tolerate the attack, adding that “attacks against Israeli embassies abroad … just means that the state of Israel and its citizens face a daily threat of terror, both physical and diplomatic.”
“We know exactly who is responsible for the attack and who planned it, and we’re not going to take it lying down,” Lieberman added.
