Iran and Israel: Open warfare after decades of shadow war

Israel said its strikes against Iran on Saturday were in retaliation for Tehran's strikes on Israel on October 1, the latest exchange in an escalating conflict between the arch-rivals.

This was the latest in a wider escalation since the war in Gaza began last year, but Israeli-Iranian enmity stretches back decades through a history of clandestine wars and attacks by land, sea, air and cyberspace.

The following is a timeline of key events:

1979 - Iran's pro-Western leader, Mohammed Reza Shah, who regarded Israel as an ally, is swept from power in an Islamic Revolution that installs a new Shi'ite theocratic regime with opposition to Israel an ideological imperative.

1982 - As Israel invades Lebanon, Iran's Revolutionary Guards work with fellow Shi'ite Muslims there to set up Hezbollah. Israel will eventually see the paramilitary group 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 Lebanon headquarters of Israel's military. Israel later withdraws from much of Lebanon.

1992-94 - Argentina and Israel accuse Iran and Hezbollah of orchestrating suicide bombings at Israel's embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish centre in the city in 1994, each of which killed dozens of people.

Iran and Hezbollah deny responsibility.

2002 - A disclosure that Iran has a secret programme to enrich uranium stirs concern that it is trying to build a nuclear bomb in violation of its non-proliferation treaty commitments, which it denies. Israel urges tough action against the Islamic Republic.

2006 - Israel fights Hezbollah in a month-long war in Lebanon but is unable to crush the heavily armed group, and the conflict ends in effective stalemate.

2009 - In a speech, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls Israel "a dangerous and fatal cancer".

2010 - Stuxnet, a malicious computer virus widely believed to have been developed by the US 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 Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan is killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran. A city official blames Israel for the attack.

2018 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hails President Donald Trump's withdrawal of the US from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers after years of lobbying against the agreement, calling Trump's decision "a historic move".

In May, Israel says it hit Iranian military infrastructure in Syria — where Tehran has been 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 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 US military personnel are injured.

2021 - Iran blames Israel for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, viewed by Western intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian programme 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, comes a day after he tells a local TV station he is open to a "last resort" use of force against Iran — an apparent move toward accommodating Israeli calls for a "credible military threat" by world powers.

April 2024 - A suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus kills seven Revolutionary Guards officers, including two senior commanders. Israel neither confirms nor denies responsibility.

Iran responds with a barrage of drones and missiles in an unprecedented direct attack on Israeli territory on April 13. This prompts Israel to launch a strike on Iranian soil on April 19, sources familiar with the matter say.

October 1, 2024 - Iran fires over 180 missiles at Israel in what it calls revenge for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27 in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs, and the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran's capital on July 31.

October 26, 2024 - Israel strikes military sites in Iran, saying it was retaliating against Tehran's attacks earlier in the month. Iranian media reports explosions over several hours in Tehran and at nearby military bases. Iran reports "limited damage" to some locations.