March 20 (UPI) -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel "acted alone" in striking Iran's South Pars gas field, an attack that escalated the war in the Middle East and prompted President Donald Trump to declare that the U.S. ally would not target the site again.
Israel attacked the South Pars field on Wednesday. In retaliation, Iran targeted major Persian Gulf energy facilities of U.S. allies, causing damage to Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City and the United Arab Emirates' Bab gas field.
The tit-for-tat strikes have edged the region closer to all-out war while soaring the price of oil, leading Trump to state the United States had known nothing of Israel's plans before it struck the South Pars gas field and to threaten Iran if it attacked Qatar again. He also said Israel would not attack Iranian energy infrastructure unless Iran attacked Qatar again.
Trump's comments and his administration's rationale for entering the war have come under scrutiny after reporting challenged his claim that Washington had no prior knowledge of the South Pars attack, while critics accused the United States of being lured into the war by Israel.
Speaking to reporters in English on Thursday, Netanyahu mostly backed Trump's account, saying "Israel acted alone against the Asaluyeh gas compound," using the name of the nearby Iranian port and industrial complex that is often used as a shorthand for the gas field.
