Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed his country would achieve victory after the military said it had shot down almost all of the more than 300 drones and missiles launched by Iran in a sharp escalation of the Middle East conflict.
Iran’s first direct attack on its enemy’s territory, following an alleged aerial bombardment of Tehran’s embassy compound in Damascus on April 1, is part of a broader escalation since the war in Gaza began last year, but their feud goes back decades.
Iran and Israel – the Middle East’s bitterest rivals – have a long history of shadow wars and clandestine attacks on land, sea, air and cyberspace.
1979 – Pro-Western Iranian leader Mohamed Reza Shah, who considered Israel an ally, is overthrown in an Islamic Revolution that establishes a new theocratic regime in which opposition to Israel is an ideological imperative.
1982 – When Israel invades Lebanon, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard collaborates with other Shia Muslims to create Hezbollah. Israel will end up considering this armed group as the most dangerous adversary on its borders.
1983 – Hezbollah, backed by Iran, uses suicide bombings to drive Western and Israeli forces from Lebanon. In November, a car loaded with explosives crashes into the Israeli army headquarters. Israel subsequently withdraws from much of Lebanon.
1992-94 – Argentina and Israel accuse Iran and Hezbollah of being behind the suicide attacks against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and against a Jewish mutual fund in the city in 1994, in which dozens of people died. Iran and Hezbollah deny responsibility.
2002 – The revelation that Iran has a secret uranium enrichment program raises fears that it is attempting to build a nuclear weapon, something it denies. Israel urges strong measures against Tehran.
2006 – Israel fights Hezbollah in a month-long war in Lebanon, but is unable to crush the heavily armed group.
2009 – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech calling Israel a “dangerous and deadly cancer.”
2010 – Stuxnet, a malicious computer virus believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant. It was the first publicly known cyberattack against industrial machinery.
2012 – Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan is killed by a bomb planted in his car by a motorist in Tehran. A city official blamed Israel for the attack.
2018 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers after years of pressure, calling Trump’s decision a “historic step.”
2021 – Iran blames Israel for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, considered by Western intelligence services to be the mastermind of a covert Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons capabilities. Tehran has long denied any such ambition.
2022 – United States President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid (July 2022-December 2022) sign a joint commitment to deny Iran access to nuclear weapons, in a show of unity among allies long divided over diplomacy with Tehran.
2024 – A suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus kills seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers, including two senior officers. Israel neither confirms nor denies its responsibility.
Iran responds with a barrage of drones and missiles on April 13 in an unprecedented direct attack on Israeli territory.
#conflict #shadows #Iran #Israel #decades
– 2024-04-15 16:14:05
