On April 14, 2024, Iran launched its first direct military attack against Israel. The Israeli military says Iran has fired more than 100 bomb-laden drones toward Israel. | Image Credit: AP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed his country would achieve victory after the military said it had shot down more than 300 drones and missiles fired by Iran in a sharp escalation of the Middle East conflict.
The first direct Iranian attack on Israel since a suspected Israeli airstrike on Tehran's embassy in Damascus on April 1 is part of a wider escalation since the war in Gaza began last year, but their feud stretches back decades.
The following map locates Israel and Iran after Iran flies drones over Israel | Image Credit: AP
Iran and Israel — the Middle East's most implacable foes — have a long history of shadow wars and covert attacks by land, sea, air and cyberspace.
2010 – Stuxnet, a malicious computer virus widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at the Natanz nuclear site in Iran. This is the first publicly known cyber attack on industrial machinery.
2012 – Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan is killed in Tehran when a motorcyclist detonates a bomb on his car. A city official blamed Israel for the attack.
2018 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu applauds US President Donald Trump's withdrawal from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers after years of lobbying against the deal, calling Trump's decision a “historic move”.
In May Israel says it struck Iranian military infrastructure in Syria – where Tehran has been supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war – after Iranian forces fired rockets into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
2020 – Israel welcomes the killing of General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, in a US drone strike in Baghdad. Iran retaliated with missile strikes on Iraqi bases housing US troops. About 100 US military personnel were injured.
2021 – Iran blames Israel for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, seen by Western intelligence services as the mastermind of a secret Iranian program to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran has long denied such ambition.
2022 – US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sign a joint pledge to deny Iran nuclear weapons.
Biden's first visit to Israel as president was crowned as part of the “Jerusalem Declaration”, a day after he told a local TV station that he was open to using force as a “last resort” against Iran – a clear move towards reconciliation. Israel's calls for a “credible military threat” from world powers.
2024 – A suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus kills seven officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two senior commanders. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
Iran responds with drone and missile strikes in an unprecedented direct attack on Israeli territory on April 13.
(Angus McDowall and Michael Giorgi Editing by David Goodman)