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Timeline: Iran and Israel's open warfare after decades of shadow war

April 15, 2024 04:23 pm | Updated 04:46 pm IST

We take a look at Iran and Israel’s conflict as Israel shoots down Iranian drones and missiles

Iran launched its first direct military attack against Israel on April 14, 2024. The Israeli military says Iran fired more than 100 bomb-carrying drones toward Israel. | Photo Credit: AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed his country would achieve victory after the military said it shot down almost all of the more than 300 drones and missiles launched by Iran in a sharp escalation of the Middle East conflict.

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The first direct Iranian attack on Israel after a suspected Israeli air strike on Tehran's embassy compound in Damascus on April 1 is part of a wider escalation since the war in Gaza began last year, but their enmity stretches back decades.

The following map locates Israel and Iran after Iran has fired drones at Israel | Photo Credit: AP

Iran and Israel -- the Middle East's most implacable foes -- have a long history of shadow wars and clandestine attacks by land, sea, air and cyberspace.

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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 Iran's Natanz nuclear site. It was the first publicly known cyberattack on industrial machinery.

2012 - Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan was 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 U.S. President Donald Trump's withdrawal from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers after years of lobbying against the agreement, calling Trump's decision "a historic move".

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In May Israel says it had struck Iranian military infrastructure in Syria - where Tehran was backing President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war - after Iranian forces there fired rockets at Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

2020 - Israel welcomes the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, in an American drone strike in Baghdad. Iran strikes back with missile attacks on Iraqi bases housing American troops. About 100 U.S. military personnel were injured.

2021 - Iran blames Israel for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was seen by Western intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian programme to develop nuclear weapons capability. Tehran has long-denied any such ambition.

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2022 - U.S. 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, was made a day after he told a local TV station that he was open to "last resort" use of force against Iran - an apparent move toward accommodating Israel's calls for a "credible military threat" by world powers.

2024 - A suspected Israeli air strike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus kills seven officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, including two senior commanders. Israel neither confirmed or denied responsibility.

Iran responds with the April 13 barrage of drones and missiles in an unprecedented direct attack on Israeli territory.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Michael Georgy Editing by David Goodman)

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