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For a long time, Israel and Iran have fought a shadow conflict throughout the Middle East, buying and selling assaults by land, sea, air and in our on-line world.
Iran has largely used overseas proxies to strike Israeli pursuits, whereas focused assassinations of Iranian navy leaders and nuclear scientists have been a key a part of Israel’s technique.
Israel’s strike within the Syrian capital, Damascus, that killed three prime Iranian commanders on Monday was essentially the most brazen assault in years, elevating fears of a wider confrontation. That can be notably harmful in a area already in turmoil on a number of fronts, together with Israel’s conflict in Gaza, cross-border skirmishes between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and assaults by Yemen’s Houthi militia towards Western pursuits within the Red Sea. An escalation between Israel and Iran would additionally danger additional entangling the United States, given the presence of American troops within the area.
Here are some key moments within the yearslong battle.
January 2020: A significant goal
The assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, commander of the foreign-facing arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in an American drone strike in Baghdad was greeted with satisfaction in Israel.
Iran hit again by attacking two bases in Iraq that housed American troops with a barrage of missiles, injuring about 100 U.S. navy personnel.
American officers accused General Suleimani of inflicting the deaths of lots of of troopers in the course of the Iraq conflict. They additionally stated that he was behind destabilizing Iranian actions all through the Middle East and that he was accused of plotting assaults towards U.S. embassies and Israeli targets.
The normal had constructed a community of allied militias to defend Iran’s pursuits throughout the Middle East and to counter the United States and Israel.
October 2023: Tit-for-tat strikes earlier than Oct. 7
Iran and Israel reportedly carried out various covert assaults and counterattacks within the years following General Suleimani’s loss of life.
Israel killed Iran’s prime nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in November 2021, and adopted up with the assassination of a Revolutionary Guards commander, Col. Sayad Khodayee, in May 2022.
In July 2021, an oil tanker managed by an Israeli-owned delivery firm was attacked off the coast of Oman, killing two crew members, in accordance with the corporate and three Israeli officers.
Two of the officers stated that the assault appeared to have been carried out by a number of Iranian drones that crashed into residing quarters beneath the ship’s bridge. Iran didn’t explicitly declare or deny duty, however a state-owned TV channel described the assault on the ship as a response to an Israeli strike in Syria.
Once Israel’s bombardment of Gaza started after the Hamas-led assaults on Oct. 7, Iranian-backed militias stepped up their assaults.
December 2023: Another high-profile killing
At the top of final 12 months, Iran accused Israel of killing a high-level navy determine, Brig. Gen. Sayyed Razi Mousavi, in a missile strike outdoors Damascus. A senior adviser to the Revolutionary Guards, General Mousavi was described as having been a detailed affiliate of General Suleimani and was stated to have helped oversee the cargo of arms to Hezbollah.
Israel, adopting its customary stance, declined to remark instantly on whether or not it was behind General Mousavi’s loss of life.
January 2024: Back-and-forth assaults ratchet up
The Pentagon launched a drone strike in Baghdad that killed a senior determine in an Iran-linked militant group.
The assault got here days after an explosion in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, that killed Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas chief, together with two commanders from that group’s armed wing. The blast was the primary such assassination of a prime Hamas official outdoors the West Bank and Gaza lately.
Officials from Hamas, Lebanon and the United States ascribed the assault to Israel, which didn’t publicly affirm involvement.
Mr. al-Arouri was essentially the most senior Hamas determine to be killed since Israel vowed to destroy the group after Oct. 7.
Israel was blamed for various assaults in Syria and Lebanon. In February, Syrian state information media stated Israel was behind an airstrike on a residential constructing in Damascus that killed two individuals.
The Israeli navy declined to touch upon that strike, although it has acknowledged lots of of previous strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria.
But the Israeli navy did acknowledge a strike in southern Lebanon in February that it stated killed a Hezbollah commander, and in March, it killed a senior Hamas operative in an airstrike additionally in southern Lebanon.
March 2024: A tense ambiance
An Israeli drone strike focused a automobile in southern Lebanon, killing at the very least one particular person. Israel’s navy stated it had killed the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit. Hezbollah acknowledged the loss of life of a person, Ali Abdulhassan Naim, however didn’t present additional particulars.
The similar day, airstrikes killed troopers close to Aleppo, northern Syria, in what seemed to be one of many heaviest Israeli assaults within the nation in years.
Those strikes killed 36 Syrian troopers, seven Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian from a pro-Iran militia, in accordance with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that tracks Syria’s civil conflict.
Israel’s navy didn’t declare duty. However, the nation’s protection minister, Yoav Gallant, wrote on social media, “We will pursue Hezbollah each place it operates and we are going to develop the strain and the tempo of the assaults.”
Three days later, on Monday night, Israeli warplanes struck the constructing in Damascus within the assault that killed the three prime Iranian commanders.
