Why have Israel and Iran attacked each other? - BBC News

The long-running shadow war between the two countries has come into the open.

1 day agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, ReutersImage caption, Isfahan region in Iran is home to military infrastructure including a large airbase and a major missile production complex, as well as several nuclear facilitiesBy Raffi Berg, Tom Spender and Jonathan Beale, defence correspondentBBC NewsAn Israeli missile has hit Iran, US officials have told the BBC's partner CBS News - an attack that is widely seen as its response to Iran's missile and drone attack on Israel.

Iran's own direct attack on Israel - its first ever - was in turn retaliation for an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus, which killed senior military commanders.

Previously Israel and Iran had been engaged in a years-long shadow war - attacking each other's assets without admitting responsibility.

Those attacks have ratcheted up considerably during the current war in Gaza sparked by the Palestinian group Hamas's assault on nearby Israeli communities last October.

The two countries were allies until the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which brought in a regime that has used opposing Israel as a key part of its ideology.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68811276

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