Terrorists target Israelis in India, Georgia

JERUSALEM — An Israeli embassy car went up in flames Monday following an explosion in a terrorist attack in the Indian capital of New Delhi and a second bomb was safely defused in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

At least one embassy employee was seriously wounded, and Israel Radio reported up to six other people were injured in the terror attack.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded angrily, saying Iran was responsible for the attacks.
“In recent months we have witnessed several attempts to attack Israeli citizens and Jews in several countries, including Azerbaijan, Thailand and others,” Netanyahu said. “In each instance we succeeded in foiling the attacks in cooperation with local authorities. Iran and its proxy Hezbollah were behind all of these attempted attacks.”

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“Iran is behind these attacks; it is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world,” Netanyahu said. “The Government of Israel and the security services will continue to act together with local security forces against such acts of terrorism. We will continue to take strong and systematic, yet patient, action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.”

Former Brigadier General Michael Herzog, a top advisor to the past four Israeli defense ministers, said on hearing the news that “we don’t know yet who is behind the attacks, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an Iranian connection here.”

“Iranian supreme leader (Ali) Khamenei recently threatened that Iran would support anybody globally who takes action against the Zionist entity,” Herzog told The Israel Project. “We may be witnessing a new wave of Iranian assaults on Israeli targets as part of what they perceive as a counter attack.”

Israeli foreign ministry deputy spokesman Paul Hirschson confirmed that a bomb had also been found earlier Monday in a car belonging to a staff worker at the Israeli embassy in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. The bomb was defused by local police.

Hirschson said the Israeli ambassador to India was not hurt in the New Delhi attack, which took place only 200 meters from the official residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The woman injured in the blast is the wife of an Israeli diplomat at the Israeli embassy, YNET news reported. The explosion apparently took place after she dropped her children off at a local preschool.

Iran sponsors both the Hezbollah terrorist organization based in Lebanon and the Palestinian Hamas terror group. Peace efforts received another blow Sunday when during an official visit to Iran, the leader of Hamas in Gaza reiterated that his group rejects peace with Israel and called for armed conflict.

“(The) Gun is our only response to the Zionist regime,” said Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. “In time, we have come to understand that we can obtain our goals only through fighting and armed resistance and no compromise should be made with the enemy.”