Israel’s Long Shadow War Against Iran Now Overt

Israel has long seen Iran as its foremost security threat, particularly due to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and support for proxy groups hostile to the Jewish state. For years, Israeli efforts to counter Iran remained in the shadows—covert assassinations of nuclear scientists, cyberattacks like the Stuxnet virus, and sabotage of sensitive military installations.

But in recent years, as Israel’s military capabilities have expanded and regional alliances have shifted, Tel Aviv has grown bolder. The covert war has increasingly given way to open military strikes—some deep within Iranian territory—marking a significant escalation in the long-simmering conflict. From targeting Iranian positions in Syria to alleged drone attacks on Iranian facilities, Israel appears determined to roll back Iran’s influence by any means necessary.

Now, with its latest high-profile strikes, Israel has signaled a new phase in this decades-long confrontation—one that could destabilise an already volatile region even further.

Timeline of Israeli Strikes on Iran

• 2007–2010: Israel launched its first cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear program. The most infamous was Stuxnet, a joint U.S.-Israeli malware that damaged thousands of centrifuges at the Natanz facility.

• 2011–2012: A series of cyber intrusions followed, including the Duqu and Flameviruses, aimed at espionage and sabotage. In 2012, Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan was assassinated in Tehran; Israel’s hand  was widely suspected.

• 2019:  Israel attacks Iranian proxies in Syria, including pro Bashar al Asad soldiers in Syria, the Hezbollah in Lebanon and pro-Iranian militants operating in Iraq. Much before the Houthi’s began attacks on ships in the Mediterranean, Israel regularly attacked Iranian ships and oil tankers in both the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea..

• 2020: A explosion at Iran’s  Natanz  facility, damaged a centrifuge assembly center. Israeli involvement was strongly suspected. The same year in November,  Israel’s top nuclear scientist often regarded as the father of the country’s nuclear program Mohsen  Fakhrizadeh, was killed in a road ambush using an autonomous satellite operated gun. Israel never admitted to it but widely suspected that this kind of high-tech gun was not available to anyone but the Israeli state in West Asia.  

• 2021: In February, Israel said Iran was responsible for an explosion on a ship transporting cars off the coast of Oman. The next month in March, Iran blamed Israel for attacking a cargo ship off the coast of Israel. In April a Iranian military vessel in the Red Sea was damaged by a suspected Israeli mine attack.

• 2022-2023: Assassins on motorcycles shot and killed Col Sayad Khodayee an officer of the Revolutionary Guards Corps. Israeli officials said he helped command a covert operations unit that conducted assassinations and abductions. Israel confirmed its role in the killing to the United States.

• The same year two prominent Iranian scientists, Fereydoun Abbasi and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi were also assassinated.

 During this period, Israel ramped up attacks on Iranian proxies in Syria.

2024:  A deadly  Israeli airstrike on an Iranian embassy building in Damascus killed several senior IRGC commanders. Iran retaliated with over 300 drones and missiles, most of which were intercepted.

In July,  Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, was assassinated in an explosion in a guesthouse in Tehran run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

In September, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, lost an eye in a massive simultaneous pager attack targeting Hezbollah members. Similar attacks on electronic devices followed in subsequent days, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands. Israel later confirmed it conducted the attacks.