The long history of Iran and Israel's shadow war

This Sunday (14 April) Iran made history by directly attacking Israel for the first time with hundreds of drones and missiles.

According to media reports, Iran sent over 300 drones and missiles to Israel. While the attacks did little damage, it has opened the door for a wider conflict that could engulf all of the Middle East. 

Till the recent attacks, Iran has largely used foreign proxies to strike Israeli interests, while targeted assassinations of Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists have been a key part of Israel's strategy, according to the New York Times.

The Iranian drone attack was a retaliation for an Israeli strike on Iran's embassy in Damascus that killed three top Iranian commanders.

Here is a timeline of the Iran-Israeli ties and conflicts:

Pre-1979 Iran-Israel ties

Despite being dubbed as archenemies by the media, Iran and Israel's relationship was not this sour always. In fact, Iran was one of the first countries in the region to recognise Israel after its formation in 1948. It was only after 1979 that their diplomatic ties ended.

In 1948, the opposition of Arab states to Israel led to the first Arab-Israeli war. Iran was not a part of that conflict, and after Israel won, it established ties with the Jewish state. It was the second Muslim-majority country to do so after Turkey.

The 1979 revolution

Iran became a religious state after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty, which maintained good relations with Israel and the United States. With the change in leadership, the Iranian regime began to see Israel as an occupier of Palestinian land.

Israel's Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini termed Israel "Little Satan" and the US the "Great Satan", seeing the two as parties interfering in the region. Iran also sought to grow its presence in the region, challenging the two major powers Saudi Arabia and Israel – both of whom were US allies.

Post-1979 shadow war

While Israel and Iran have never engaged in direct military confrontation, both have attempted to inflict damage on the other through proxies and limited strategic attacks. 

Israel has attacked Iranian nuclear facilities from time to time, while Iran is seen as responsible for funding and supporting several militant groups in the region that are anti-Israel and anti-US, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

2010s:  In the early 2010s, Israel targeted several facilities and nuclear scientists in a bid to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.

In 2010, the US and Israel are believed to have developed Stuxnet, a malicious computer virus. Used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Iran's Natanz nuclear site, it was the "first publicly known cyberattack on industrial machinery", according to Reuters.

January 2020: A US strike in Baghdad killed Major General Qassim Suleimani, commander of the foreign-facing arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.Israel greeted the assassination with satisfaction.
Iran responded by attacking two bases in Iraq that housed American troops with a barrage of missiles, injuring about 100 US military personnel.

July 2021: An oil tanker managed by an Israeli-owned shipping company was attacked off the coast of Oman, killing two crew members, according to the company and three Israeli officials. Iran did not explicitly claim or deny responsibility, but a state-owned TV channel described the attack on the ship as a response to an Israeli strike in Syria.

November 2021: Israel killed Iran's top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

November 2022:  Israel assassinates a Revolutionary Guards commander Colonel Sayad Khodayee.

October 2023:  Following General Suleimani's death, Iran and Israel reportedly carried out a number of covert attacks and counterattacks. 

December 2023: As Israel began to bomb Gaza following Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, Iranian-backed militias stepped up their attacks.

In December of that year, Iran accused Israel of killing a high-level military figure, Brig Gen Sayyed Razi Mousavi, in a missile strike outside Damascus.

According to the New York Times, General Mousavi was a senior adviser to the Revolutionary Guards and was said to have helped oversee the shipment of arms to Hezbollah.

Israel declined to comment directly on whether it was behind General Mousavi's death.

January 2024: An explosion in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon killed Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas leader, along with two Hamas commanders. Officials from Hamas, Lebanon and the United States ascribed the attack to Israel, which did not publicly confirm involvement.

The US, a few days later, killed a senior figure in an Iran-linked militant group in a drone strike in Baghdad.

In the meantime, Hezbollah, which receives major support from Iran, stepped up its assaults on Israel. Israel's military hit back at Hezbollah in Lebanon, killing a number of the group's commanders.

Later in January, Iran accused Israel of launching an airstrike on Damascus that killed a number of senior Iranian military figures in Syria.

Then, a drone strike by an Iran-backed militia killed three American service members and injured at least 34 others in Jordan.

Ten days later, US forces launched a retaliatory drone strike in Baghdad that killed a senior militia leader that US officials blamed for the attacks on American personnel.

February 2024: In February, Syrian state news media said Israel was behind an airstrike on a residential building in Damascus that killed two people. Israel declined to comment. 

March 2024: An Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon killed one person. Hezbollah acknowledged the death of a man, Ali Abdulhassan Naim, but did not provide further details.

The same day, airstrikes in Aleppo, northern Syria killed 36 Syrian soldiers, seven Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian from a pro-Iran militia. 

Israel's military did not claim responsibility for the strikes.

On 12 March, Israeli warplanes struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus in the attack that killed the three top Iranian commanders.