ISRAEL and Iran opened a new chapter in their long history of conflict when Israel launched a major attack on Friday that set off explosions in the Iranian capital Tehran, killing 78 and injuring more than 300 people.
Israeli leaders cast the attack as necessary to head off an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs, though it remains unclear how close the country is to achieving that or whether Iran had actually been planning a strike.
Iran maintains its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only.
“This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed as he vowed to pursue the attack for as long as necessary to “remove this threat”.
Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East but has never acknowledged having such weapons.
Why did Israel bomb Iran?
Israel’s seemingly well-planned attack comes as tensions have escalated over Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme, which Israel sees as a threat to its existence.
Israel said it targeted nuclear and military facilities, killing Iran’s top military and nuclear scientists, adding that the barrage was necessary before its adversary got any closer to building an atomic weapon.
The strikes took place despite negotiations between Iran and the United States over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Iran had been censured by the UN’s atomic watchdog a day earlier for not complying with obligations meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Israel had long threatened such a strike, and successive US administrations had sought to prevent it, fearing it would ignite a wider conflict across the Middle East and possibly be ineffective at destroying Iran’s dispersed and hardened nuclear programme.
What did the IAEA, the UN's atomic watchdog, say about Iran?
On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had failed to uphold the obligations it had signed on to as part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Iran rejected the accusation while the IAEA believed was a long history of non-cooperation between Iran and inspectors. However, it did not say that Iran had developed nuclear weapons.
Experts and the US government have also assessed that Tehran was not actively working on such a weapon.
Has Israel again broken international law by attacking Iran?
The short answer is: According to some, yes.
Israel has breached dozens of international laws in its onslaught of Gaza.
Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin, said: “Based on publicly available information, Israel’s use of force against Iran does not fit within the inherent right of self-defence enshrined in the UN Charter."
“Self-defence requires Israel’s actions to be directed at an ongoing or imminent armed attack by Iran,” added Becker, who has previously worked at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
“There is no indication that an attack by Iran against Israel was imminent, nor is it sufficient under international law for Israel to justify the attack based on its assessment that Iran will soon have a nuclear capability, especially given the ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran.”
Here is a timeline of some significant events between Israel and Iran:
- 2010 – Iran’s nuclear programme is a primary target. The Stuxnet computer virus is discovered and widely believed to be a joint US-Israeli creation. The virus disrupted and destroyed Iranian centrifuges.
- 2018 – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel obtained tens of thousands of pages of data showing Iran covered up its nuclear programme before signing a deal with world powers in 2015. An ex-Mossad chief confirms the information was obtained by more than a dozen non-Israeli agents from safes in Tehran in 2018.
- 2020 – Alleged Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear programme are stepped up significantly after the disintegration of the 2015 nuclear deal meant to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
- July 2020 – A mysterious explosion tears apart a centrifuge production plant at Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. Iran blames the attack on Israel.
- November 2020 – A top Iranian military nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran. A top Iranian security official accuses Israel of using “electronic devices” to remotely kill the scientist, who founded Iran’s military nuclear programme in the 2000s.
- April 11, 2021 – An attack targets Iran’s underground nuclear facility in Natanz. Iran blames Israel, which does not claim responsibility, but Israeli media widely reports the government orchestrated a cyberattack that caused a blackout at the facility.
- April 16, 2021 – Iran begins enriching uranium up to 60%, its highest purity ever and a technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
- June 2022 – Iran accuses Israel of poisoning two nuclear scientists in different cities within three days of each other, though circumstances remained unclear.
- October 7, 2023 – Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip storm into Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 250 hostage, beginning the most intense war between Israel and Hamas, leading to Israel's genocide in Gaza. Iran, which has armed Hamas, offers support to the militants.
- February 14, 2024 – An Israeli sabotage attack causes multiple explosions on an Iranian natural gas pipeline running from Iran’s western Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province to cities on the Caspian Sea.
- April 1, 2024 – An Israeli airstrike demolishes Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing 16 people, including two Iranian generals.
- April 14, 2024 – Iran launches an unprecedented missile and drone attack on Israel, firing more than 300 missiles and attack drones in response to the Israeli airstrike in Damascus. Working with a US-led international coalition, Israel intercepts much of the incoming fire.
- April 19, 2024 – A suspected Israeli strike hits an air defence system near an airport in Isfahan, Iran.
- July 31, 2024 – Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is assassinated by an apparent Israeli airstrike during a visit to Tehran.
- Israel had pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the October 7 attack.
- September 27, 2024 – An Israeli airstrike kills Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Formed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard members who went to Lebanon in 1982 to fight invading Israeli forces, Hezbollah was the first group that Iran backed and used as a way to export its brand of political Islam.
- October 1, 2024 – Iran launches its second direct attack on Israel, though a US-led coalition and Israel shoot down most of the missiles.
- October 16, 2024 – Israel kills Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip.
- October 26, 2024 – Israel openly attacks Iran for the first time, striking air defence systems and sites associated with its missile programme.
- April 30, 2025 – Iran executes a man it said worked for Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence agency and played a role in the killing of Revolutionary Guard colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei in Tehran on May 22, 2022.
