(Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed his country will achieve victory after the army said it had shot down nearly 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 archenemy, following a suspected airstrike on Tehran’s embassy in Damascus on April 1, is part of a broader escalation since the war in Gaza began last year, but their enmity dates back decades.
Iran and Israel – the Middle East’s most implacable enemies – have a long history of shadow wars and clandestine attacks by land, sea, air and cyberspace.
1979 – Iranian pro-Western leader Mohammed Reza Shah, who considered Israel an ally, is swept from power in an Islamic revolution that establishes a new theocratic regime with opposition to Israel an ideological imperative.
1982 – As Israel invades Lebanon, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards work with local Shiite Muslims to found Hezbollah. Israel will ultimately view the armed group as the most dangerous adversary on its borders.
1983 – Hezbollah, supported by Iran, uses suicide bombings to expel Western and Israeli forces from Lebanon. In November, a car packed with explosives enters the Israeli army headquarters. Israel subsequently withdraws from much of Lebanon.
1992-94 – Argentina and Israel accuse Iran and Hezbollah of being behind suicide bombings against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish center in the city in 1994, each of which killed dozens of people.
Iran and Hezbollah deny any responsibility.
2002 – Revelations that Iran has a secret uranium enrichment program raises fears that it is trying to build a nuclear weapon, which it denies. Israel urges tough action against Tehran.
2006 – Israel fights Hezbollah in a month-long war in Lebanon, but fails to crush the heavily armed group.
2009 – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech calling Israel “a dangerous and fatal cancer.”
2010 – Stuxnet, a malicious computer virus widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, is used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Iran’s Natanz nuclear site. It was the first cyber attack against industrial machinery in the public domain.
2012 – Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan is killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran. A city official blamed Israel for the attack.
2018 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hails 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 said it struck Iranian military infrastructure in Syria – where Tehran supported President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war – after Iranian forces fired rockets into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
2020 – Israel welcomes the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the overseas arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, in an American drone strike in Baghdad. Iran responds with missile attacks against Iraqi bases hosting American troops. About 100 US service members 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 nuclear weapons capabilities. Tehran has long denied this ambition.
2022 – US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sign a joint pledge to deny nuclear weapons to Iran in a show of unity by allies long divided over diplomacy with Tehran.
The pledge, part of a “Jerusalem Declaration” capping Biden’s first visit to Israel as president, was made a day after Biden told a local TV station that he was open to using “last resort” force ” against Iran – an apparent move towards an accommodative stance. Israel’s demands for a “credible military threat” from world powers.
2024 – A suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus kills seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard officers, including two senior commanders. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
Iran responds with a barrage of drones and missiles on April 13 in an unprecedented direct attack on Israeli territory.