How Iran and Israel Attack Each Other While Avoiding All-Out War

An unprecedented attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas has renewed the world’s focus on a shadow war that’s shaped the Middle East for decades. Of the many conflicts that have roiled the region, the one between Israel and Iran — sponsor of Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah as well as Iraqi and Yemeni militia — has long been among the most explosive. Their battles have often been fought through those proxies, avoiding an escalation into direct war in a major oil-exporting region. It’s not clear what role Iran had in the Hamas incursion, but as the shadow war enters a deadly new phase, here’s a look at how we got here.

They were allies starting in the 1950s during the reign of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, but the friendship abruptly ended with the Islamic revolution in Iran 1979. The country’s new leaders adopted a strong anti-Israel stance, decrying the Jewish state as an imperialist power in the Middle East. Iran has supported groups that regularly fight Israel, notably Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian group Hamas. Israel regards Iran’s potential to build nuclear weapons as a threat to its existence and is thought to be behind a campaign of sabotage against the country’s atomic program.