MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Israel discloses information on terrorist attack against embassy in Argentina

Ambassador Daniel Gazit, “we have the names of all those involved and who gave the orders”

In the week of the 18th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, the Israeli government claims to have identified the intellectual and material perpetrators of the bombing which left 29 dead, 242 wounded on March 17th, 1992.

“We know who was behind the embassy’s attack, who organized it, who gave the orders and who did it, with names and everything,” said the Israeli ambassador in Argentina, Daniel Gazit, who added that they “have been taken care off”.

Interviewed by the Argentine weekly Perfil, Gazit said that “Hezbollah and Iran were responsible for the attack,” though he considered that “the Argentine authorities have the local connection” because Israel “doesn’t know more than the Argentine judiciary”.

“It is well accepted and known that Hezbollah was behind the attack and it is also common sense that without the authorization from the Hezbollah leaders of that time, an attack of such a magnitude could have not taken place”, underlined Gazit.

“For the Embassy, it is important to clarify everything. There are some local criminals who collaborated with terrorism in the country, which does not mean that Argentina supported them, quite the opposite,” says Gazit.

Spokesmen for the embassy said the alleged perpetrators of the attack are dead, including Lebanese Emad Mughaniya, one the militant group Hezbollah leaders. He was assassinated in Damascus in February 2008 and was allegedly foreign security chief for Hezbollah.

Mughaniya was one of the men accused by the Argentine Justice for the attack on the embassy and the bombing in 1994 which destroyed the headquarters of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, that left 85 dead and hundreds injured.

Argentina’s Justice blamed Iran and Hezbollah for the attacks on AMIA. Interpol issued an international warrant for the arrest of six suspected Iranians in 2007, but Iran has refused to extradite them.

This year negotiations have begun with Iran to judge the accused in a neutral country, but there has been no progress so far, according to Interpol.

Following the release of the information an Israeli embassy spokesperson said that there had been a misinterpretation of ambassador’s Gazit words when he said “they had been taken care of”.

The ambassador was misquoted since he really meant that “Israel had taken note” of those involved but this does not mean “they have been eliminated”.