Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had vowed his country would respond after. Tehran’s action,its first-ever strike on Israel,had been in retaliation for a suspected Israeli airstrike on Tehran’s embassy compound in Damascus on April 1.
The exchanges are part of a wider escalation since the war in Gaza began last year,but the two nations’ enmity stretches back decades,through a history of shadow wars and clandestine attacks by land,sea,air and cyberspace.
1979 – Iran’s pro-Western leader Mohammed Reza Shah,who regarded Israel as an ally,is swept from power in an that installs a new theocratic regime with opposition to Israel as an ideological imperative.
1982 – As Israel invades Lebanon,Iran’s Revolutionary Guards work with fellow Shi’ite Muslims there to set up Hezbollah. Israel eventually comes to see the as the most dangerous adversary on its borders.
1983 – Iran-backed Hezbollah uses suicide bombings to expel Western and Israeli forces from Lebanon. In November,a car packed with explosives drives into the headquarters of the Israeli military. Israel later withdraws from much of Lebanon.
1992-94 – Argentina and Israel accuse Iran and Hezbollah of being behind suicide bombings on Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a,each of which killed dozens of people.
Iran and Hezbollah deny responsibility.
2002 – Revelation that Iran has a prompted concern that it was trying to build a nuclear weapon,which it denied. Israel urges tough action against Tehran.
2006 – Israel fights Hezbollah in a but is unable to crush the heavily armed group.
2009 – In a speech,Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls Israel “a dangerous and fatal cancer”.
2010 –,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 is the first publicly known cyberattack on industrial machinery.
2012– Iranian nuclear scientist 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 with world powers – after years of lobbying against the agreement – as “a historic move”.
In May,Israel says it has struck – where Tehran was backing President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war – after Iranian forces there fired rockets at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
2020 – Israel welcomes the,commander of the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,in an American drone strike in Baghdad. Iran strikes back with. About 100 US military personnel are injured.
2021 – Iran blames Israel for the,viewed by Western intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons capability. Tehran has long denied any such ambition.
2022 – US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sign a joint pledge to deny Iran nuclear arms,in a show of unity by allies long divided over diplomacy with Tehran.
The undertaking,part of a “Jerusalem Declaration” crowning Biden’s first visit to Israel as president,came a day after he told a local television station he was open to “last resort” use of force against Iran – an apparent move towards accommodating Israel’s calls for a “credible military threat” by world powers.
2024 – In early April,a suspected Israeli air strike on the kills seven officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard,including two senior commanders. Israel does not confirm or deny responsibility.
Iran responds with a barrage of drones and missiles in. This prompts Israel to launch.
Follow our live coverage of.
– Reuters
Get a note directly from our foreigncorrespondentson what’s making headlines around the world.