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For forty years Israel and Iran fought through others and in the shadows. Since April 2024 they have struck each other's territory openly, and since February 2026 Israel has bombed Tehran as part of the war it wages together with the United States. Iran fires missiles at Israeli cities in return.
The wider confrontation, its history and each side's full account: Israel in regional confrontation, and from Iran's side, Iran in regional and international confrontation.
The exchange has slowed since the summer while the United States and Iran fight at sea. Iran's Revolutionary Guard says the war can end if Washington drops its threats and Israel leaves Lebanon. Israel's prime minister says the fall of Iran's government is within reach.
Iran's leaders say Israel should not exist and have armed those who fight it. Israel says it cannot allow such a state the means to carry that out, and has moved from sabotage and assassination to open war to prevent it. The two have no border and no territorial quarrel; each sees the other as the power behind every threat it faces. Israel's aim has widened from Iran's nuclear programme to the Islamic Republic itself, which leaves Tehran little to negotiate over.
A regime that promises Israel's destruction, builds missiles to reach it and enriches uranium toward a bomb has to be believed. For years Israel fought its proxies while Tehran sat safe. 7 October showed the cost of waiting. Israel has now destroyed Iran's air defences, killed the men who ran its war, and shown that the head of the octopus can be reached.
Israel has murdered Iran's scientists, bombed its embassy in Damascus, killed its guests in Tehran and its head of state, and started two wars while Iran was negotiating. It is the only nuclear-armed state in the region and answers to no one. Iran's missiles struck back at the bases the attacks came from, and they got through.
Israel's leaves out that it struck first in each round, its own undeclared arsenal, the Iranian civilians killed in Tehran, and that a fallen Islamic Republic may not be followed by a friend.
Tehran's leaves out forty years of calling for Israel's elimination, the rockets of its allies on Israeli towns, and that its missiles were aimed at cities too.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
Per-week distribution of events. Click a bar to see that week's top events.
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