Middle East
Iran and Israel’s shadow war has lasted years: Key moments before the attack
By
The Washington Post April 16, 2024
Annabelle Timsit and Sammy Westfall
The Washington Post April 16, 2024
A vehicle destroyed by a Hezbollah missile in Kibbutz Menara. (Amnon Gutman/Bloomberg)
Iran sent more than 300 missiles and drones toward Israel beginning April 13, marking its first direct military attack on the Jewish state. But Israel and Iran have waged a shadow war for decades, through cyberattacks, targeted killings and proxy groups.
Successive Iranian regimes have vowed to destroy Israel. Israel and its Western allies, including the United States, view Tehran as a threat — particularly as it gets closer to nuclear weapons capability. The United States has provided Israel with more military aid than any other country since World War II — now amounting to about $3 billion per year — in part to protect it from Iran.
Here are the key moments in Israeli-Iranian relations and the shadow war leading up to the attack.
The Islamic Republic of Iran forms, broadens its reach
The Islamic Republic of Iran, whose clerical leaders seized power in a 1979 revolution, has worked to cultivate proxy groups across the Middle East to broaden its reach and serve as a counterweight to Israel and its main Western backer, the United States — which Iran has called “Little Satan” and “Great Satan,” respectively.
Tehran provides support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, and factions in Syria and Iraq. “Wherever Israel looks right now, it sees Iran on its border, even though Iran does not border Israel,” said Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow in Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Program.
Hezbollah first emerged in Lebanon in the 1980s during the Lebanese civil war, in reaction to Israel’s occupation of the country’s southern region. In its 1985 manifesto, Hezbollah laid out the destruction of Israel as a key goal.
Hamas was first formed in the 1980s, but it rose to power in Gaza in 2007, after it defeated the established Fatah party in parliamentary elections and waged a bloody battle for the territory. Israel and many Western allies consider Hamas a terrorist group. In 2007, two years after withdrawing from Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip with Egypt’s support. That blockade has never been entirely lifted. Washington says that Iran provides extensive support to Hamas and to another militant group committed to armed resistance against Israel, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in the form of financing, weapons and training.
The Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, who took control of Yemen’s capital in 2014 and triggered a humanitarian crisis, have been fighting against Saudi-backed government forces. In what they call an act of solidarity with Palestinians amid the war in Gaza, the militants have increased attacks on cargo ships traversing the Red Sea since Oct. 7, disrupting maritime trade and drawing global ire.
Iran bombs Jewish center in Argentina, court finds
Argentina’s highest criminal court last week said that Iran planned, and Hezbollah executed, the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center headquarters that killed 85 people and injured more than 300, the Associated Press reported. This was “one of the events” that made clear that Iran and its proxies were prepared to “attack Israel and Jewish communities anywhere in the world,” said Mekelberg.
For decades, people have accused Argentina of bungling the investigation. Both Iran and Hezbollah have denied involvement in the attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, but Argentina’s judiciary long maintained that Iran was behind the attack.
Israel targets Iran’s nuclear program
In the last two decades, Iran has accused Israel of tampering with its nuclear program.
In 2010, cyberanalysts discovered a computer virus, named Stuxnet, that had successfully infiltrated Iran’s nuclear program, among other systems. It later emerged that the cyberattack was the work of U.S. and Israeli experts and that, even after software security companies discovered the virus, the joint operation targeting Iranian nuclear infrastructure proceeded under the secret orders of President Barack Obama, who was eager to slow Iran’s apparent progress toward building an atomic bomb without launching a traditional military attack, The Post reported at the time.
Iran’s highly sensitive Natanz nuclear facility has been hit over the years. In 2020, for instance, a massive explosion and fire caused significant damage. Iranian officials suggested that the United States or Israeli operatives were to blame, though neither country acknowledged involvement. In 2021, Iran blamed Israel for an electrical blackout that left some older centrifuges damaged. Israeli media outlets reported at the time that the facility had been targeted by a cyberattack carried out by the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, but Israel did not comment.
There have also been several suspicious deaths of scientists. Between 2010 and 2012, four scientists affiliated with Iran’s nuclear program were killed in separate incidents. In one, a physics professor at Tehran University was killed when a bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded as he passed nearby. More Iranian scientists have been killed since and, in many cases, authorities and Iranian media said Israel was responsible. Israel did not comment. On Nov. 27, 2020, a top Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed in an ambush outside of Tehran. Iranian officials again suggested that Israel was behind the attack.
Ali Ansari, professor of Iranian history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said that while the killings did not fundamentally alter Iran and Israel’s conflictual relationship, the thought that Israel was able to find and execute targeted strikes against people with sensitive knowledge of Iran’s closely guarded nuclear program “made the Iranians panic” and created “higher levels of anxiety within the Iranian establishment and the desire to restore a degree of deterrence.”
In January 2018 — years after Iran signed a deal with the United States and others to stop developing nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting economic sanctions — Israeli secret agents raided a storage facility in Tehran and stole tens of thousands of documents relating to Iran’s nuclear program. Israeli officials used the uncovered information to further their campaign against the 2015 nuclear accord, which Israel views as a threat to its security because it believes the deal was not stringent enough to prevent Iran from one day developing nuclear weapons. The stolen documents contained no proof that Iran had violated the nuclear accord, The Post reported at the time.
War in Gaza heightens regional tensions
On Oct. 7, Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people, the deadliest onslaught in the country’s history. At least 253 people were taken hostage. Israel reacted by invading Gaza, vowing to destroy Hamas. More than 33,000 people have been killed and 76,000 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Israeli officials blame Iran for supporting and enabling Hamas, even if they have stopped short of accusing Tehran of being responsible for the Oct. 7 attack. President Joe Biden said shortly after it happened that there was “no clear evidence” of Tehran’s direct involvement.
But since Oct. 7, Iranian-backed proxy groups have targeted Israel and its economic interests, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in the Red Sea.
Syria as a shadow battleground
An Israeli airstrike hit an Iranian consular building in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, killing members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two senior commanders. The IRGC has a long history of supporting violent attacks against Israel and the United States. Israel has carried out strikes against Iranians and Syrian military targets in Syria for years, but this attack stood out because of its location, a diplomatic compound, and the seniority of the target. Israel, as is custom, did not publicly claim responsibility for the strike.
The strike may have exposed the regime’s “vulnerability,” creating domestic pressure for the regime to retaliate, Ansari said.
Iran mounts first attack on Israel from its territory
On April 13, Iran began its first full-scale military attack against Israel. Israel and allies intercepted around 99 percent of the projectiles, Israeli officials said, but the attack still caused damage to a military base and seriously injured a young girl in Israel.
Iranian media said Tehran’s attack was in retaliation for the Damascus strike. Israel is weighing its response, as the United States and Western allies urge restraint amid concerns about escalation.
Miriam Berger, Susannah George, Mohamad El Chamaa, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Justine McDaniel and Frances Vinall contributed to this report.