Iran and Israel's Open Warfare after Decades of Shadow War

A general view of Tehran after several explosions were heard, in Tehran, Iran, October 26, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A general view of Tehran after several explosions were heard, in Tehran, Iran, October 26, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
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Iran and Israel's Open Warfare after Decades of Shadow War

A general view of Tehran after several explosions were heard, in Tehran, Iran, October 26, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A general view of Tehran after several explosions were heard, in Tehran, Iran, October 26, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Israel said its strikes against Iran on Saturday were in retaliation for Tehran's strikes on Israel on Oct. 1, the latest exchange in an escalating conflict between the arch-rivals.

This was the latest in a wider escalation since the war in Gaza began last year, but Israeli-Iranian enmity stretches back decades through a history of clandestine wars and attacks by land, sea, air and cyberspace.

According to Reuters, following is a timeline of key events:

1979 - Iran's pro-Western leader, Mohammed Reza Shah, who regarded Israel as an ally, is swept from power in a Revolution that installs a new Shiite theocratic regime with opposition to Israel an ideological imperative.

1982 - As Israel invades Lebanon, Iran's Revolutionary Guards work with fellow Shiites there to set up Hezbollah. Israel will eventually see the group as the most dangerous adversary on its borders.
1983 - Iran-backed Hezbollah uses suicide bombings to expel Western and Israeli forces from Lebanon. In November a car packed with explosives drives into the Lebanon headquarters of Israel's military. Israel later withdraws from much of Lebanon.

1992-94 - Argentina and Israel accuse Iran and Hezbollah of orchestrating suicide bombings at Israel's embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and a Jewish center in the city in 1994, each of which killed dozens of people.
Iran and Hezbollah deny responsibility.

2002 - A disclosure that Iran has a secret program to enrich uranium stirs concern that it is trying to build a nuclear bomb in violation of its non-proliferation treaty commitments, which it denies. Israel urges tough action against Iran.

2006 - Israel fights Hezbollah in a month-long war in Lebanon but is unable to crush the heavily armed group, and the conflict ends in effective stalemate.

2009 - In a speech, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calls Israel "a dangerous and fatal cancer.”

2010 - Stuxnet, a malicious computer virus widely believed to have been developed by the US and Israel, is used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Iran's Natanz nuclear site. It is the first publicly known cyberattack on industrial machinery.

2012 - Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan is killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran. A city official blames Israel for the attack.

2018 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hails President Donald Trump's withdrawal of the US from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers after years of lobbying against the agreement, calling Trump's decision "a historic move.”

In May Israel says it hit Iranian military infrastructure in Syria - where Tehran has been backing President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war - after Iranian forces there fired rockets at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

2020 - Israel welcomes the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, in an American drone strike in Baghdad. Iran strikes back with missile attacks on Iraqi bases housing American troops. About 100 US military personnel are injured.

2021 - Iran blames Israel for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, viewed by Western intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons capability. Tehran has long denied any such ambition.

2022 - US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sign a joint pledge to deny Iran nuclear arms in a show of unity by allies long divided over diplomacy with Tehran.

The undertaking, part of a "Jerusalem Declaration" crowning Biden's first visit to Israel as president, comes a day after he tells a local TV station he is open to a "last resort" use of force against Iran - an apparent move toward accommodating Israeli calls for a "credible military threat" by world powers.

April 2024 - A suspected Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus kills seven Revolutionary Guards officers, including two senior commanders. Israel neither confirms nor denies responsibility.

Iran responds with a barrage of drones and missiles in an unprecedented direct attack on Israeli territory on April 13. This prompts Israel to launch a strike on Iranian soil on April 19, sources familiar with the matter say.

Oct. 1, 2024 - Iran fires over 180 missiles at Israel in what it calls revenge for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27 in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs, and the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran's capital on July 31.

Oct. 26, 2024 - Israel strikes military sites in Iran, saying it was retaliating against Tehran's attacks earlier in the month. Iranian media reports explosions over several hours in Tehran and at nearby military bases. Iran reports "limited damage" to some locations.



Things to Know About the UN Special Rapporteur Sanctioned by the US

Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, talks to the media during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, July 11, 2023. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)
Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, talks to the media during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, July 11, 2023. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)
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Things to Know About the UN Special Rapporteur Sanctioned by the US

Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, talks to the media during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, July 11, 2023. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)
Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, talks to the media during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, July 11, 2023. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)

A UN special rapporteur was sanctioned by the United States over her work as an independent investigator scrutinizing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, a high-profile role in a network of experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Francesca Albanese is among the experts chosen by the 47-member council in Geneva. They report to the body as a means of monitoring human rights records in various countries and the global observance of specific rights.

Special rapporteurs don't represent the UN and have no formal authority. Still, their reports can step up pressure on countries, while their findings inform prosecutors at the International Criminal Court and other venues working on transnational justice cases.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement announcing sanctions against Albanese on Wednesday that she “has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel and the West.”

Albanese said Thursday that she believed the sanctions were “calculated to weaken my mission.” She said at a news conference in Slovenia that “I’ll continue to do what I have to do.”

She questioned why she had been sanctioned — “for having exposed a genocide? For having denounced the system? They never challenged me on the facts.”

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, called for a “prompt reversal” of the US sanctions. He added that “even in face of fierce disagreement, UN member states should engage substantively and constructively, rather than resort to punitive measures.”

Prominent expert

Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer, has developed an unusually high profile as the special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, a post she has held since May 2022.

Last week, she named several large US companies among those aiding Israel as it fights a war with Hamas in Gaza, saying her report “shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many.”

Israel has long had a rocky relationship with the Human Rights Council, Albanese and previous rapporteurs, accusing them of bias. It has refused to cooperate with a special “Commission of Inquiry” established following a 2021 conflict with Hamas.

Albanese has been vocal about what she describes as a genocide by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel and the US, which provides military support to its close ally, have strongly denied the accusation.

‘Nothing justifies what Israel is doing’

In recent weeks, Albanese issued a series of letters urging other countries to pressure Israel, including through sanctions, to end its deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip. She also has been a strong supporter of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for allegations of war crimes.

Albanese said at a news conference last year that she has “always been attacked since the very beginning of my mandate,” adding that criticism wouldn't force her to step down.

“It just infuriates me, it pisses me off, of course it does, but then it creates even more pressure not to step back,” she said. “Human rights work is first and foremost amplifying the voice of people who are not heard.”

She added that “of course, one condemned Hamas — how not to condemn Hamas? But at the same time, nothing justifies what Israel is doing.”

Albanese became an affiliate scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University in 2015, and has taught and lectured in recent years at various universities in Europe and the Middle East. She also has written publications and opinions on Palestinian issues.

Albanese worked between 2003 and 2013 with arms of the UN, including the legal affairs department of the UN Palestinian aid agency, UNRWA, and the UN human rights office, according to her biography on the Georgetown website.

She was in Washington between 2013 and 2015 and worked for an American nongovernmental organization, Project Concern International, as an adviser on protection issues during an Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Member of a small group

Albanese is one of 14 current council-appointed experts on specific countries and territories.

Special rapporteurs, who document rights violations and abuses, usually have renewable mandates of one year and generally work without the support of the country under investigation. There are rapporteurs for Afghanistan, Belarus, Burundi, Cambodia, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, Russia and Syria.

There also are three country-specific “independent experts,” a role more focused on technical assistance, for the Central African Republic, Mali and Somalia.

Additionally, there are several dozen “thematic mandates,” which task experts or working groups to analyze phenomena related to particular human rights. Those include special rapporteurs on “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” the human rights of migrants, the elimination of discrimination against people affected by leprosy and the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children.