The Buenos Aires bombing was a warning the world ignored.
Thirty-two years after 85 people were murdered at a Jewish community center, Iran and Hezbollah are still exporting terror — and the world is still struggling to confront them.
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This is a guest essay by Lieutenant Colonel Ariella Mazor, the IDF’s International Spokesperson.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Yesterday, Argentina took the field against Spain in the FIFA World Cup Final. It was a moment of immense national pride for millions of Argentinians. But as the world watches Buenos Aires celebrate, it is also worth remembering another day that forever changed the city.
In 1994, Argentina was home to a Jewish community of 200,000, making it the largest in Latin America and the sixth-largest in the world outside of Israel.
In July of that year — 32 years ago today — a bomb-laden van, executed as a suicide attack, was driven into the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and injuring more than 300 others. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history and one of the deadliest antisemitic attacks since the Holocaust.
The victims were ordinary civilians. They were employees, students, parents, volunteers, and members of Argentina’s Jewish community. They were targeted solely because they were Jewish.
The bombing came two years after the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 and wounded 242, and was Argentina’s deadliest attack until the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association bombing. The Islamic Jihad Organization, which according to Robert Baer operates under the umbrella of Hezbollah and is linked to Iran, claimed responsibility for that bombing.
Within hours of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association attack, Israel dispatched an IDF Search and Rescue delegation to Argentina to assist local authorities in locating survivors and recovering victims from the rubble. From the very beginning, the bombing was understood not simply as an assault on Argentina’s Jewish community, but as part of a broader campaign of international terrorism.
The members of the IDF delegation worked alongside Argentinian firefighters and volunteers in the search for survivors and the recovery of victims.
Master Sergeant (Reservist) Nissim Nassi, a rescue engineer in the IDF Search and Rescue Brigade, later recalled: “We received the call and immediately packed our bags and left. We quickly understood that the attack was carried out with a car bomb placed beneath the building.”
Argentine judicial authorities and international investigations have attributed the bombing to Hezbollah, acting with the support and direction of the Iranian regime. The attack demonstrated that Hezbollah was never merely a Lebanese terrorist organization. Through an international network of operatives and logistical infrastructure, it proved capable of carrying out sophisticated attacks against civilians thousands of miles from the Middle East.
The passage of time has not changed the nature of the regime behind the attack. Earlier this year, after Israeli and American strikes eliminated several senior Iranian military commanders, the Islamic Republic of Iran appointed Ahmad Vahidi as Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Vahidi is the subject of an INTERPOL Red Notice requested by Argentina for his suspected role in planning the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association bombing. Three decades after the attack, one of the men accused of helping orchestrate it was not marginalized or brought to justice. He was promoted.
The world did not fully heed the warning delivered in Buenos Aires. Rather than being dismantled after the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association bombing, Hezbollah spent the following decades expanding its military capabilities under Iranian patronage, ultimately becoming the world’s most heavily armed non-state terrorist organization.
Backed by Iranian funding, weapons, intelligence, and training, it amassed an extensive arsenal of rockets, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and precision-guided munitions while embedding military infrastructure throughout cities, schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods in southern Lebanon, in blatant violation of international law.
Over the past year, IDF operations have significantly degraded Hezbollah’s military capabilities. Senior commanders were eliminated, weapons production and storage facilities were destroyed, launch infrastructure was dismantled, and key command-and-control networks were disrupted through precise, intelligence-based operations.
These operations were directed against a terrorist organization, not against the Lebanese people. Hezbollah’s deliberate exploitation of civilian infrastructure has long placed Lebanese civilians at unnecessary risk while violating the fundamental principles of the law of armed conflict. The people of Lebanon deserve better than a terrorist organization that exploits their communities to advance Iran’s regional ambitions.
The significance of these operations extends well beyond Israel’s northern border. From Buenos Aires to Burgas and beyond, Hezbollah has repeatedly demonstrated that its ambitions have never been confined to Lebanon or to its conflict with Israel.
As Iran’s most capable and heavily armed proxy, it has served for decades as one of the regime’s principal instruments for exporting terrorism across the globe. Degrading Hezbollah’s military capabilities therefore contributes not only to Israel’s security but also to broader international efforts to counter Iranian-sponsored terrorism.
Some things haven’t changed.
For years, Hezbollah and Iran have spread terror. Over those same years, Israel has repeatedly sent aid and emergency assistance to communities in need around the world.
Even now — after recent devastating earthquakes in Venezuela — Israel dispatched teams from the IDF Home Front to assist. IDF engineers in Venezuela are helping to formulate multi-year national recovery plans. This came after the IDF dispatched emergency teams to Turkey and Morocco following earthquakes in 2023, and to Bulgaria, Ghana, Nepal and more.
The difference between Israel and its enemies could not be more stark. The IDF works to save lives around the world, while Hezbollah and the Iranian regime work to brutally take them.
Commemorating the victims of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association bombing is more than an act of remembrance. It is a reminder that the ideology, infrastructure, and leadership responsible for the senseless murder did not disappear in 1994.
Iran continues to finance, arm, and direct terrorist organizations. Iran and Hezbollah continue to threaten civilians and undermine international security. And the IDF stands between them and the Jewish People.
Interesting history that people need to know. Also, the fact that Israel is losing the PR war with all the heroic things they are doing to help other countries is an abomination. Somehow it needs to get into the press. If not the NYT, a former newspaper, then at least get a write up in the Wall Street Journal op eds. The Free Press needs to do a write up on it.
And the world should not forget the elephant in the room .. the most colonial entity is the spread of Islam, which is happening throughout western civilisation with ever increasing numbers of Muslims.