The Israeli foreign ministry marked the 21st anniversary of a terrorist attack on its embassy in Buenos Aires last Friday, as envoy Ran Curiel attended a commemorative ceremony at the site of the former embassy in the Retiro neighborhood of the Argentinian capital.
Israel holds Hezbollah responsible for the as-yet unsolved bombing which claimed the lives of 29 people, including three Israeli embassy staff, six local embassy employees and Argentineans, as well as injuring 294 people.
Ahead of the official anniversary of the March 17 attack Sunday, DAIA, the umbrella organisation of Argentine Jewry, reported that the Argentine Supreme Court was due to bring a Lebanese suspect to trial, after Argentine President Cristina Kirchner brought the issue up in a regular Congress session a fortnight ago. According to judicial sources, the Court has uncovered new information which suggests the perpetrator had links to Hezbollah.
In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that the Iran-linked Lebanese group was responsible for carrying out the bombing, with its head of external security Imad Mugniyah apparently heading the operation, The Court issued a warrant for Mugniyah’s arrest, however, he was killed by a car bomb two years later before being brought to trial. Israel denied subsequent Arab media reports its secret service agency Mossad had carried out the bombing in retribution for the embassy attack 16 years earlier.
A memorial was inaugurated on the former embassy grounds in 200 consisting of a marble replica of the building, bearing the verse of the prophet Amos in memory of the victims: “I will raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old.”
Last month, Israel risked a diplomatic impasse with Argentina after objecting to the Argentine government’s decision to collaborate with the international sanctioned Iranian regime on a ‘truth commission’ into another attack on the Buenos Aires AMIA Jewish community centre in 1994, which killed 85 Argentine nationals and injured hundreds. Israel again holds Iran responsible for the deadly bombing.
According to an Israeli foreign ministry statement, Argentina’s Ambassador to Israel was called to meet with the ministry’s director of Latin American affairs Yitzchak Shoham in the immediate aftermath of the January 27 “historic” decision announced by Kirchner. The official comment revealed Shoham expressed his country’s “astonishment and disappointment” at the unprecedented move to collaborate with Iran, describing it as “particular disappointing given the intimate relationship to which Israel is accustomed with Argentina, a very friendly country”.
The Jewish population of Argentina currently stands at approximately 250,000, the largest in Latin America, the majority of whom live in the capital.