The low-level conflict between Israel and Iran has shaped the Middle East for decades. Of the many conflicts that have troubled the region, theirs has long been among the most explosive. The two have attacked each other—mostly quietly and, in Iran’s case, often by proxy—while avoiding escalating into outright war.

The conflict entered a dangerous new phase with the outbreak of the current war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, which Iran supports. This struggle has drawn in other Iranian-backed militant groups as well as Iran itself. Tensions rose after Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in July while visiting Iran, presumably by Israel. Then, in late September, Israeli forces assassinated the leader of Hezbollah, Iran’s most valued regional ally, and moved into southern Lebanon as part of a campaign against the militia. On October 1, Iran fired about 200 missiles directly into the country in a major escalation. In retaliation, Israel began airstrikes on targets in Iran in the early hours of October 26.

Why are Israel and Iran enemies?

Israel and Iran have been allies since the 1950s during the reign of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, but the friendship ended abruptly with Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The country’s new leaders took a strong anti-Israeli stance, condemning the jews. state as an imperialist power in the Middle East. Iran has supported groups that regularly fight Israel, notably Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels, which the US considers terrorist organizations.

Israel views Iran’s potential to build nuclear weapons as a threat to its existence and is believed to be behind a campaign of sabotage against the country’s atomic program. Iran’s leaders say they have no ambition to build nuclear weapons. The Israelis point to a trove of documents their intelligence agents pulled from Iran in 2018 that suggest otherwise. Israeli officials have repeatedly suggested that if Iran reached the limit of its weapons capability, it would attack its nuclear program using air power, as they did with Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007.

What is Hezbollah’s role?

Lebanon is the oldest front in the shadow war. In reaction to Israel’s invasion of the south of the country in 1982, a militia that would become Hezbollah was formed by Lebanese Muslims belonging to the Shiite branch of Islam dominant in Iran. Their group has become somewhat of a proxy for Iran’s main security force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Israel and Hezbollah have fought repeatedly, including in a war since 2006. Since Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, triggering the current war, Hezbollah has expressed its solidarity with Hamas by firing rockets, mortars and missiles into Israel, prompting Israel to respond with its own fire. With its fighting force and significant arsenal, which includes long-range and precision-guided missiles, Hezbollah is considered to be Iran’s best asset for projecting influence in the Middle East.

What are the other fronts of the Israel-Iran conflict?

Syria. Throughout the Syrian civil war, Iran has built up a military presence in that country. It did so both to support its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, and to help Hezbollah by creating a land bridge to transfer weapons from Iran through Iraq and Syria. For Israel, this created a second hostile presence on its northern border beyond that of Hezbollah. In an effort to counter it and stem the flow of weapons, Israel has for years carried out strikes inside Syria against arms shipments and other targets it says are linked to Iran and its allies, in some cases killing Iranians, according to media reports. Strikes on Iranian targets in Syria attributed to Israel accelerated after 7 October.

Regional waters. The tit-for-tat attacks on merchant ships began in 2019. Although neither Israel nor Iran have accepted responsibility for the strikes on ships linked to the other, they are believed to be behind them. Targets include Iranian tankers carrying oil destined for Syria; an Iranian ship off the coast of Yemen that served as a floating base for the Revolutionary Guards; and Israeli-owned or related cargo ships.

In an escalation of sea battles, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have disrupted shipping in the Red Sea by attacking ships in solidarity with Hamas. They say they are targeting ships connected to Israel, as well as the US and Britain, which have launched retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets. But ships without such connections were hit.

Yemen. The Houthis, who have controlled northwestern Yemen since the civil war broke out in 2014, have also fired missiles and drones at Israel. Most were intercepted, but a Houthi drone killed a man in Tel Aviv in July. Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes on Yemen.

Iraq. Accusing separatist groups in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region of collaborating with foreign security services against it, Iran has launched several attacks in the region since late 2022. Israel has in the past used facilities in northern Iraq to gather intelligence on Iran, according to several reports.

What about the attacks inside the two countries?

Israel and Iran for the first time exchanged fire on each other’s home countries earlier this year. Iran launched a massive missile and drone attack on Israel on April 13. It was precipitated by an airstrike two weeks earlier on Iran’s diplomatic buildings in the Syrian capital Damascus, which was widely attributed but not acknowledged by Israel. The strike killed seven Iranian soldiers, including a senior Revolutionary Guard commander.

Iran’s attack prompted a more limited return attack by Israel on 19 April. The dams caused minimal damage, but set the precedent for open, direct fighting between the two countries. Then came the October exchanges.

In the past, Iran has largely absorbed Israeli attacks on its interests in Syria. In one exception, its forces there in 2018 fired a barrage of rockets at Israeli positions in the Golan Heights, a plateau captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed. Israel responded with a much greater show of force.

Hidden attacks in the two homelands were more frequent. Both Iran and Hamas accuse Israel of being responsible for the July 31 killing in Tehran of Hamas chief Haniyeh. Israel is believed to be behind the assassination in Tehran of five Iranian nuclear scientists in 2010 and several attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites.

More than a decade ago, malware known as Stuxnet compromised operations at an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility in what is suspected to have been a US-Israeli operation.

In October 2021, an Iranian general said Israel was likely behind a cyber attack that crippled gas stations in Iran. And in January 2023, after an Iranian ammunition depot near the central city of Isfahan was attacked in a drone strike, two US newspapers reported that Israel was responsible.

Cyber ​​attacks launched by Iran include a hack that tried to cripple computers and the flow of water to two Israeli districts, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

How do the militaries of Israel and Iran compare?

Israeli forces have a vast technological advantage over Iran’s. This is partly due to military and financial support from the US, which has long sought to secure Israel’s advantage as part of its commitment to the security of the Jewish state. For example, Israel is the only state in the Middle East that has so far bought Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 fighter jet. — the most expensive weapon system to date.

Israel is also widely believed to have nuclear weapons, although it has never acknowledged this capability. Iran has stockpiled enough enriched uranium to build several nuclear bombs if its leaders choose to purify the heavy metal to the 90 percent level typically used in such weapons. They would still need to master the process of arming the propellant to produce an operable device capable of hitting a target at a distance.

Sanctions and political isolation have hindered Iran’s access to foreign military technology, prompting it to develop its own weapons, including the missiles and drones it fired against Israel in April. Iran’s fighter jets are mostly older models inherited from before the country’s 1979 revolution. The country hopes to improve its military capabilities through increased cooperation with Russia. So far, the high-end Russian military items that Iran wants most, including the Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets, remain on the wish list.

Although at a technological disadvantage, Iran’s military is believed to have a significant stockpile of ballistic and cruise missiles and cheap unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, which it deployed against Israel in April.

As Iran learned in that attack and the one that followed on October 1, penetrating Israel’s substantial air defenses is a challenge. It flies over Israeli Air Force fighters. Then there are Israel’s Arrow and David’s Sling air defense systems, plus the interception capabilities of the US and other allied forces in the region.

Iran’s own defensive arsenal includes surface-to-air missile systems, including the Russian S-300 to counter aircraft and cruise missiles, and the domestically manufactured Arman anti-ballistic missile system. These are not nearly as battle-tested as Israel’s defenses — a testament to Iran’s preference for asymmetric warfare, where it can project power of larger dimensions than head-to-head combat.