After Israel announced today that it had carried out attacks on Iran, a day before talks between Tehran and Washington on Iran's uranium enrichment program, which are scheduled to take place in Oman, Reuters recalled key events in relations between Tel Aviv and Tehran.
Today's attack represents the latest escalation since the start of the Gaza war in 2023 and heightens fears of open war between the two countries, whose decades-long hostility includes covert conflicts on land, sea, air and cyberspace, the British agency writes.
Chronology of key events:
1979 – Iran's pro-Western leader, Mohammad Reza Shah, who considered Israel an ally, was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution, which introduced a Shiite theocratic regime whose ideology included opposition to Israel.
1982 – During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Iran's Revolutionary Guards aided Shiite Muslims in the formation of Hezbollah. Israel would later consider the paramilitary group the most dangerous enemy on its borders.
1983 – Hezbollah, backed by Iran, uses suicide attacks to drive Western and Israeli forces out of Lebanon. In November, a car bomb hits an Israeli army headquarters in Lebanon. Israel withdraws from most of the country.
1992–94 – Argentina and Israel accuse Iran and Hezbollah of organizing suicide attacks on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish center in 1994, which killed dozens of people. Iran and Hezbollah deny responsibility.
2002 – Iran is revealed to have a secret uranium enrichment program, raising concerns that it is developing a nuclear bomb, which would violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran denies this, and Israel demands decisive action against the country.
2006 – Israel wages a month-long war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, but fails to crush the well-armed group. The conflict ends in a stalemate.
2009 – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls Israel a “dangerous and deadly cancer” in a speech.
2010 – Stuxnet, a malicious computer virus believed to have been developed by the US and Israel, is used to attack the Natanz uranium enrichment facility. It is the first known cyberattack on industrial equipment.
2012 – Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan is killed by a bomb planted on his car in Tehran. City officials blame Israel.
2018 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the Iran nuclear deal. In May, Israel announced that it had targeted Iranian military infrastructure in Syria after Iranian forces fired rockets into the occupied Golan Heights.
2020 – Israel welcomes the killing of General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' expeditionary wing, by a US drone strike in Baghdad. Iran retaliates with missile attacks on US bases in Iraq, wounding about 100 American soldiers.
2021 – Iran accuses Israel of killing Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, whom Western intelligence services consider the architect of a secret nuclear program. Tehran has long denied that it has ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.
2022 – US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sign a joint statement pledging not to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The statement, known as the “Jerusalem Declaration,” comes after Biden said he was open to the “last resort” of using force against Iran – seen as an attempt to respond to Israeli calls for a “credible military threat” from world powers.
April 2024 – An Israeli airstrike is suspected of hitting the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, killing seven members of the Revolutionary Guard, including two senior commanders. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility. Iran responds with a barrage of drones and missiles in an unprecedented direct attack on Israeli territory on April 13, prompting Israel to launch a counterstrike on Iranian territory on April 19, according to sources familiar with the situation.
October 2024 – Iran fires more than 180 missiles at Israel, calling it revenge for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on September 27 in an airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31. Later in the month, Israel carries out strikes on military sites in Iran, claiming to be responding to Iranian attacks. Iranian media reports explosions in Tehran and nearby military bases. Iran says there was “limited damage.”
Meitheamh 2025 – Israel carries out strikes in Iran, saying the targets were nuclear infrastructure and scientists working on developing a nuclear bomb, in an operation that is expected to last several days. Calling the offensive “Rising Lion,” Israel said it also targeted Iranian commanders and missile factories, and declared a state of emergency in anticipation of Iranian retaliation. Iranian state media reported that the strikes killed Revolutionary Guard commander in Tehran Hossein Salami and nuclear scientists Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi.
The United States says it did not support the operation. The attacks came a day after Donald Trump said US personnel were leaving the Middle East because "it can be a dangerous place".
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