Israel has denied any role in the huge rocket fuel blast, which left at least 28 dead
April 28, 2025 10:28The massive explosion at Iran’s largest commercial port on Saturday could pose a threat to the survival of the regime, an Israeli expert on the country has said.
Beni Sabti, who works on the Iran programme at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), told Israeli newspaper Maariv that the Shahid Rajaee port in the southern city of Bandar Abbas “was the most important port for the regime”.
Sabti said the port was important “not only because it was the largest in Iran, but because the hub was used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to transfer weapons to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and the Houthis.”
It was also used “to illegally transfer oil to China,” Sabti added.
“Various tankers operated there, disappearing and reappearing, essentially collecting oil from the port or bringing in goods that Iran needs,” he said.
“This location and this port were extremely critical to the survival of the Iranian regime.”
Meanwhile, Israeli officials on Saturday denied any connection to the enormous explosion.
According to Iranian authorities on Sunday, the death toll from the blast has risen to 28, with more than 1,000 others injured.
A large plume of smoke was seen above the key port, one of two located in the southern city of Bandar Abbas.
The explosion blew out windows and roofs of nearby buildings, destroying cars. Residents up to 50km (31 miles) away reported feeling the impact.
The Port of Shahid Rajaee is located on the north shore of the Strait of Hormuz, about nine miles west-southwest of the Port of Bandar Abbas.
Initial reports suggested that the blast was linked to a shipment of chemicals used to make fuel for ballistic missiles.
Iranian authorities did not disclose any information about the cause of the blast, though they denied that it was linked to the country’s oil industry, AP reported.
A spokesperson for the Islamic Republic’s crisis management organisation, Hossein Zafari, told Iran’s ILNA news agency that “the cause of the explosion was the chemicals inside the [shipping] containers”.
In March, private security firm Ambrey reported that the Port of Shahid Rajaee had unloaded a shipment of “sodium perchlorate rocket fuel,” according to AP.
“The fire was reportedly the result of improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles,” the security firm added.
The Financial Times in January reported that the fuel was sent from China to Iran in two vessels, as the Islamic Republic was looking to replenish its depleted missile stocks after firing about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in October 2024.
AP, after analysing ship-tracking data, also reported that one of the vessels likely carried the chemical ingredient to the port in March.
Iran never confirmed accepting the shipment.
Western explosives and munitions experts say that the orange smoke observed from the blast is consistent with the burning of nitrogen compounds, which are a key component in rocket fuel.
An Iranian parliamentarian claimed on Sunday that Israel was responsible for the explosion, saying that explosive devices were planted in the shipping containers that triggered it, reported The Times of Israel.
"Israel was involved in the explosion,” MP Mohammad Siraj told the Rokna news agency. “It was not accidental. Clear evidence points to Israeli involvement.”
But Israeli officials told Channel 12 the day before that Israel had no connection to the blast.
An enormous explosion due to the instability of these chemicals occurred at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon in 2020, killing 218 people, injuring more than 7,000 others and displacing some 300,000 people.
Some suggested the blast was created by explosive material reportedly stored at the port by Hezbollah.
The Port of Shahid Rajaee is a strategic import and export facility for Iran. It handles 85% of the total loading and unloading carried out at the country’s ports, the Tehran Times reported in September 2021.
It is also a key port from which arms are transported to the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
Iranian media reported on Sunday that a fire at the port reignited after additional containers exploded, despite earlier claims that the blaze was nearing full extinguishment.
Pirhossein Koolivand, head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, said in a video published on Sunday that some of the injured had been transferred to Tehran, more than 650 miles away, for treatment.
All operations in the port have been reportedly halted.
Commander Eyal Pinko, a senior researcher at the Begin Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, who served in the Israeli Navy for 23 years, estimated in early April that Iran has “several hundred missiles” left in its arsenal, after firing some 300 missiles and drones at Israel on April 13, 2024, and another 200 missiles on October 1, 2024, in two of the largest missile strikes in history.
The attacks featured some of Iran’s most advanced projectiles, including the liquid-fueled Emad, a variant of the Ghader missile (itself a variant of the Shahab 3), the Khorramshahr 2 missile (a solid-fuel missile based on the Fateh 110), and likely use of the Fatah 1 hypersonic missile.
Israel’s Arrow 3 missile defence system intercepted the majority of the threats in both attacks, with the assistance of the United States and regional states, which also downed some of the projectiles.
Israel responded on October 26, 2024 with broad waves of strikes in Iran, targeting Iran’s air defence systems and missile solid fuel factories, as well as, according to media reports, a site at Parchin linked to Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Written with Jewish News Syndicate