Vice Admiral Eli Sharvit, a former Israeli Navy commander, said that the Jewish state’s naval forces had considerably increased their presence in the Red Sea amid Iran’s alleged growing threats to Israeli shipping.
In an interview with the AP news agency on Thursday, Sharvit dubbed the purported Iranian activities in the area as a top Israeli concern, arguing that the Jewish state’s Navy is capable of striking wherever necessary to protect the country’s economic and security interests.
The vice admiral pledged that “the state of Israel will protect its freedom of navigation across the globe”, something that he said is “not related to distance from the country”.
“We have increased our presence in the Red Sea most significantly. We are operating there continuously with main ships, that is to say missile frigates and submarines. What in the past was for relatively short periods of time is now done continuously”, Sharvit said.
He warned that “if there were an attack on Israeli shipping lanes or Israeli freedom of navigation, Israel would have to respond”, he said.
MV Savis Incident
The interview comes after an Iranian cargo ship, the Saviz, was attacked in April in the Red Sea by a missile or a mine, with Israel allegedly notifying the US that its forces had carried out the strike as "retaliation for earlier Iranian strikes on Israeli vessels", according to The New York Times. The Iranian Foreign Ministry at the time confirmed that the MV Saviz had been targeted in the Red Sea.
Tehran previously described the MV Saviz as a vessel that was engaged in aiding “anti-piracy'' efforts in the Red Sea and the international shipping route through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
In November 2019, Tehran claimed that Iranian tankers had been targeted in the Red Sea three times in a six-month period, warning the international community that the shipping route was "unsafe".
Iran-Israel Standoff
Relations between Iran and Israel have been non-existent since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Tel Aviv, among other accusations, points the finger at Tehran, who, Israel claims, is providing weapons to Damascus as a means of attacking the Jewish state. Iran denies having a military presence in the Arab Republic apart from advisers sent in at the request of Damascus to help the Syrian government fight terrorist groups.
Tehran rejects Israel's right to exist, frequently vowing to destroy it, while Tel Aviv, apart from accusing Iran of supplying arms to Damascus, has repeatedly pledged to stop the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Iranian government insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.