TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s state TV has broadcast footage purporting to show a close encounter between the Revolutionary Guard’s navy and the USS Theodore Roosevelt early this year.

Press TV’s website said the encounter occurred March 21 in the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, the passageway for nearly a third of all oil traded by sea.

The TV agency said the video was aired Saturday as part of a documentary.

The footage is likely meant as a show of strength amid new US sanctions on Iran and the Trump administration plans to bring Iranian oil exports down to zero.

In the video, Guard speedboats are seen closing in on the US carrier.

Iranian sailors then warn the Americans over radio communication to “keep well clear” of the Guard patrol boats and say they advise the Americans to “refrain from the threat or use of force in any manner.”

There was no immediate comment from the US Navy.

Iranian harassment of US ships in the Gulf was a regular occurrence, but according to the US Navy, the practice declined sharply after the election of US President Donald Trump in 2016 and had totally stopped by 2018.

Administration officials have touted the drop in confrontations as proof that Washington’s hard line toward the regime brought about a change in behavior.

A senior Israeli official said that Russia’s decision to provide advanced anti-aircraft systems to Syria posed a serious challenge for the Jewish state, but added that Israel was working on ways to prevent the development from becoming a major threat to the country’s security.

“The S-300 is a complex challenge for the State of Israel. We are dealing with the [decision] in different ways, not necessarily by preventing shipment [of the anti-aircraft system],” the official said.

The official added that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin understands that while Moscow “made a move, the playing field is very large,” indicating that Israel reserved the right to protect itself and that it had the support of the United States.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday criticized Russia’s decision to supply Syria with the defense system as “irresponsible,” but said Israel was committed to continued deconfliction with Moscow in its military operations in the region.

Speaking to CNN in New York after the annual UN General Assembly, Netanyahu said that he spoke to Putin earlier this month after Syrian forces responding to an Israeli airstrike mistakenly shot down a Russian military reconnaissance plane, killing all 15 people on board.

Netanyahu said he told Putin, “Let’s continue this deconfliction, but at the same time, I told him very respectfully and very clearly that Israel will do, will continue to do what it has to do to defend itself.”

He said both sides wanted to avoid a military clash in Syria, noting that the many militaries and other groups operating in the region were making it “very crowded over there in this tiny space.

“Through this mess, we’ve been able for three years to avoid any clash between … between Russian and Israeli forces,” he said. “I think there’s a desire on both our part and Russia’s part to…. avoid a clash.”

On Friday, Russia began supplying the S-300 air-defense system to Syria despite Israeli protests.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the deliveries had started during a UN press conference. He said the anti-aircraft system “will be devoted to ensure 100 percent safety and security of our men in Syria.”

Lavrov’s announcement came in the wake of the downing of the Russian plane.

The Russian defense ministry also announced it would begin jamming radars of military planes striking targets in Syria from off the coast of the Mediterranean.

Russian electronic warfare equipment intended to disrupt airstrikes has already arrived in Syria, according to Russian media reports. According to the Moscow-based Izvestia daily newspaper, the electronic warfare equipment arrived at Hmeimim Air Base near Latakia on Monday, aboard Il-76 transport aircraft. Without detailing exactly what was sent, the sources noted that the systems were intended to disrupt airborne radar, aircraft communication and controls, and satellite navigation systems used in attack jets, drones, and guided munitions.

Both Israel and the United States have protested the decision to supply Syria with the S-300, which could complicate ongoing Israeli efforts to prevent Iran deepening its military presence in Syria and to thwart the transfer of weapons in Syria to Hezbollah.

Israel has vowed to continue its operations. On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week, Netanyahu said after meeting US President Donald Trump that the US president gave him various unspecified guarantees regarding Israel’s freedom of operation in Syria. “I received what I asked for. I came with specific points and I got them,” he told reporters.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes against Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria over the last several years, with fighter jets going nearly unchallenged by the country’s air defenses — though an F-16 was downed by a Syrian anti-aircraft missile in February in what the IDF later said was the result of a professional error by the pilots.

Jerusalem has vowed to prevent Lebanon-based Hezbollah or Iranian proxy militias in Syria from obtaining advance weapons that could threaten the Jewish state and has worked to keep Iran from gaining a foothold in Syria that can be used to attack Israel.

Russia, which is a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has maintained a deconfliction hotline with Israel, allowing the Jewish state to carry out the attacks as long as it was informed beforehand.

The future of that program has been uncertain since the September 17 incident, which occurred as four Israeli fighter jets conducted an airstrike on the weapons warehouse near the coastal city of Latakia, which the IDF said was intended to provide weapons to the Hezbollah terror group and other Iranian proxies.

The remains of a Syrian ammunition warehouse which was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on a base in Latakia, September 18, 2018. (ImageSat International (ISI/Ynet)

Moscow has accused Israel of using the IL-20 spy plane as a shield after the attack, rejecting Israel’s claims that poorly trained Syrian air defense operators are to blame for the deaths of 15 Russian servicemen aboard the aircraft.

Israel denies this charge, and insists it also notified the Russians 12 minutes before the attack — while Moscow has said it was given only a minute’s notice.

Earlier this year Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman downplayed Israeli concerns over Russia’s purported plans to install the system in Syria.

“One thing needs to be clear: If someone shoots at our planes, we will destroy them. It doesn’t matter if it’s an S-300 or an S-700,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intended to reveal a third batch of intelligence material in his UN speech on Thursday, in which he exposed what he said was a “secret atomic warehouse” in Tehran and revealed details of Hezbollah missile factories in Beirut, a senior Israeli official said at the weekend.

Netanyahu ultimately elected not to include the third revelation in his address to the General Assembly because the security establishment recommended that he not do so, Israel’s Channel 10 news said Saturday night.

Beyond indicating that the intelligence material related to “a third site,” the official provided no further details of the information.

Netanyahu’s decision to specify the location and alleged content of the Tehran atomic warehouse, from which he said the Iranians recently removed 15 kilograms of radioactive material, was taken after consultations with the security establishment and with its approval, the prime minister has made clear.

Israel had provided details of the warehouse to the IAEA and to the US administration six weeks ago, but Netanyahu charged that the IAEA failed to act. It was decided after security consultations at the Prime Minister’s Office that Netanyahu would publicize the information at the UN, in the hope of galvanizing the IAEA into action.

Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a placard of suspected Iranian atomic sites while delivering a speech at the United Nations during the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2018, in New York City. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images/AFP)

Since his speech, the US has indeed asked the IAEA to investigate the site, and Netanyahu also asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to push the IAEA on this.

Immediately after Netanyahu’s speech, meanwhile, the IDF published further information on the Hezbollah missile factories that Netanyahu had referred to.

Presumably the recommendation from security chiefs that Netanyahu not include material on the third site in his speech stemmed from a decision to work behind the scenes on this issue for the time being.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech on files obtained by Israel he says prove Iran lied about its nuclear program, at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, on April 30, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

In April, Netanyahu held a press conference to detail the contents of a huge haul of documentation taken by the Mossad from a secret Iranian nuclear weapons project archive in Tehran. The operation to remove that material from under the Iranians’ noses had taken place months earlier. Israel had privately shared some of the material with the US and with the IAEA, Netanyahu said at the time, but did not rush to make the haul public.

Briefing Israeli reporters traveling with Netanyahu in the US on Friday, a senior Israeli official said the prime minister’s revelation of the atomic warehouse and its contents has caused “growing pressure inside Iran.”

“They’re wondering how to deal with this facility, how to evacuate it, how to cover it up,” the official said. “There is no doubt it is a very important site for them; they’re seeking to conceal it and stall in any way possible.”

According to the official, the 15 kilograms of radioactive material that Netanyahu said was removed from the facility and dispersed around Tehran was taken away at the beginning of August.

Netanyahu himself told Israeli reporters at the briefing that it was past time for the IAEA to act, and that Iran had been exposed “as deceiving and cheating the international community.” He also said that Iran was aiming to break out to a nuclear arsenal when it deems the time ripe: “There’ll be a crisis somewhere or other, and they’ll [take advantage of the distraction] to break out to a nuclear arsenal,” he warned. “That’s the Iranian plan.”

In his address to the General Assembly on Thursday revealing the “secret atomic warehouse,” Netanyahu said “[Global] intelligence services and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have known about this for six weeks” and failed to act. The warehouse allegedly contained nuclear materials that Iran is not allowed to hold without declaring them to the IAEA.

Netanyahu, in his speech, claimed the warehouse was used for “storing massive amounts of equipment and material from Iran’s secret weapons program,” which was quickly being moved to other parts of the city.

The site may contain as much as 300 tons of nuclear-related equipment and material in 15 shipping containers, he added.

The US on Friday asked the IAEA to investigate Netanyahu’s new allegations, although Reuters also quoted a US official as saying the prime minister’s information was misleading, and that the site contained documentation and not nuclear materials.

The Israeli official rejected this on Friday, saying, “It’s not just documents. There are other things there,” and added: “Did he check it? First of all, let them check.” He noted that it seemed “very important for Iran to hide it, to disperse things across Tehran.”

The official acknowledged that Israel did not have information on everything contained within the site, and said this was why the IAEA should “go and check.”

Asked if the existence of the secret warehouse and its contents definitely violated the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Israeli official replied: “First of all, let them check… Why did they remove 15 kilograms of radioactive material? That’s a question that needs to be looked into.

“We know there’s radioactive material there. They distributed that radioactive material all around Tehran. Those 15 kilograms are a fact. Why did they go around dispersing it? What happened? They need to check.”

Iranians on Friday published selfies on social media taken outside the facility, and mocked Netanyahu’s claim that it was a secret nuclear facility. The official said, “The fact that you have young Iranians taking selfies there is unbelievable.”

An Iranian poses outside the site identified by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a secret Iranian nuclear facility on September 28, 2018. (Twitter)

The senior official scoffed at the notion that Netanyahu had exposed sensitive intelligence material. “That’s absurd. We had discussions about this, what to reveal and what not to, and it was decided to reveal it at this point.”

Netanyahu himself on Friday said it was “time for [the IAEA] to act.” As to whether it would, he said: “They may act and they may not act, but one thing is certain — Iran has been exposed as deceiving and cheating the international community. That’s been revealed and that’s the main purpose. Anything else is a bonus.”

Netanyahu once again lambasted the 2015 nuclear deal, saying Iran “immediately” used funds freed up by the accord to bolster its war machine. “It gave them hundreds of millions of dollars in direct released funds, in credit and in the entry of investors” and Iran had since seen “a 40 percent increase in its defense budget.”

Said Netanyahu Friday, in a bitter denunciation of the accord: “The essence of the 2015 nuclear deal was that, in that in return for not enriching uranium for a single bomb, Iran in a few years will get the right to enrich for hundreds of bombs. Iran has already announced that it will produce 200,000 centrifuges, some of them 20 times faster than the current generation.”

Iran, he said, has “mountains of yellowcake” uranium concentrate. “They have their archived information [on bomb-making] in their secret atomic archive. They can push not for one bomb, but for hundreds of bombs simultaneously.”

“There’ll be a crisis somewhere or other, and they’ll [take advantage of the distraction] to break out to a nuclear arsenal,” he warned. “That’s the Iranian plan. And that’s what the agreement gave them.

“It also gave them hundreds of millions of dollars — directly released funds,” he noted. “They put that money directly into their war machine; there’s been a 40% increase in their defense budget.

The Iranians, he said, “were also obligated [under the deal] to come clean on all their [nuclear] activities. The 15 kilograms [of radioactive material] is further prove [of their failure to do so].”

The newly revealed warehouse, said Netanyahu, did not merely contain documents, as some US officials have charged. “There are other things too. But they key fact is that they hid it.”

On Friday an unnamed official told Channel 10 news that the facility was uncovered by the Mossad spy agency a few months ago, and had since been kept under surveillance.

When the IAEA failed to act, the Israeli government apparently agonized over what to do with the information, and decided after discussions in the Prime Minister’s Office that Netanyahu would reveal it in his annual speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday in an attempt to goad the IAEA into taking action.

An image from a placard displayed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly showing a suspected ‘secret atomic warehouse’ in the Turquzabad district of Tehran containing up to 300 tons of nuclear material. (GPO)

“There was no choice but to reveal this information, because the goal is to prompt the IAEA to take action,” the senior official said. “We wanted to wake up the world and pressure the IAEA to act against the suspected facilities in Iran.”

Channel 10 reported that the senior official revealed that the nuclear facility is under the supervision of a secret Iranian defense ministry department headed by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, named by Netanyahu in his April presentation of the seized nuclear archive as the Iranian physicist who heads the country’s nuclear program.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, holds up a placard showing a suspected Iranian atomic site while delivering a speech at the United Nations during the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2018, in New York City. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images/AFP)

“Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” Netanyahu had said in April, showcasing the material that he said proved conclusively that Iran lied when it said it had not sought nuclear weapons and that the 2015 nuclear deal was built upon “Iranian deception.”

The Israeli official was adamant, by contrast, that what the Iranians were keeping in the newly revealed warehouse was considerably more grave than the contents of the archive. The official did not elaborate beyond saying it was “forbidden nuclear material,” the TV report said.

In May an Israeli TV report suggested Jerusalem may have decided not to assassinate Fakhrizadeh because it prefers to keep him alive and watch what he is up to, even as other Iranian nuclear experts have been assassinated in recent years in hits attributed to the Mossad.

At the General Assembly speech (full text here),  the prime minister said the IAEA had failed to take any action after he revealed in April a nuclear archive that Israeli spies managed to spirit out of Iran, and so he was now revealing what he said was a “secret atomic warehouse” in the Turquzabad district of Tehran, a few miles from the archive.

Both the archive and warehouse, Netanyahu said, were proof that Iran had not given up its nuclear program. “Iran has not abandoned its goal to develop nuclear weapons … Rest assured that will not happen. What Iran hides, Israel will find,” Netanyahu added.

On Thursday, Netanyahu also met with UN Secretary-General Guterres and urged him to ask the IAEA to investigate the facility.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (R) in New York, September 27, 2018. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)

He urged IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano, whom he called “a good man,” to “do the right thing” and “go and inspect this atomic warehouse immediately — before the Iranians finish cleaning it out.”

Inspect “right here, right now,” he urged, “and inspect the other sites we told you about… Tell the world the truth about Iran.”

Iranian officials have dismissed Netanyahu’s claims about the atomic warehouse as unfounded and “obscene.”

Referring to Netanyahu’s statements as “ridiculous,” an Iranian state TV report said the country is committed to nonproliferation and Iran’s nuclear program is under surveillance of the IAEA. The website of state TV briefly reported the Netanyahu accusation and called it an “illusion.”

Agencies contributed to this report.