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29-01-2021
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI/ JERUSALEM/ ISLAMABAD: A blast outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Friday damaged cars but did not cause injuries, police said.
Israeli authorities were treating the explosion as a suspected attack, The Times of Israel has learned, and was stepping up security precautions at missions around the world.
The district around the embassy was sealed off after the explosion and police and bomb disposal experts took over the scene.
A police statement described it as a “very low-intensity improvised device” that blew out the windows on three nearby cars and said a preliminary 
investigation “suggests a mischievous attempt to create a sensation.”
Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi spoke with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
“The Indian FM assured me that the Indian authorities are committed to the security of all Israeli diplomatic staff and will continue to act resolutely to locate all those involved in the explosion,” Ashkenazi tweeted, adding that “I thanked him and promised full cooperation and any help required from Israel.”
Meanwhile, Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval called Israel’s NSA Meir Ben-Shabbat to update him on the investigation.
Ben-Shabbat passed a message from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that Israel has “full confidence that Indian authorities will successfully investigate the incident and protect Israelis and Jews there,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Israeli missions have already been on alert around the world in the wake of the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist in November of last year. Tehran has blamed Israel and promised revenge.
In 2012 the wife of Israel’s defense attaché to India was moderately injured 
after a motorcyclist attached a bomb to her car near the embassy. Iran was suspected in the Delhi attack.
It was part of a series of attempted attacks against Israeli targets around the world attributed to Iran. The same day as the New Delhi blast, a bomb was discovered on an Israeli diplomat’s car in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The next day, three Iranians accidentally blew up their house in Thailand.
There was speculation that those incidents were in response to Israel’s alleged assassinations of multiple Iranian nuclear scientists as Jerusalem fought to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.
