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

Fire fighters work outside a building that was hit by Israeli airstrikes north of Tehran, Iran, 13 June 2025. (EPA)
Fire fighters work outside a building that was hit by Israeli airstrikes north of Tehran, Iran, 13 June 2025. (EPA)
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Iran and Israel's Open Warfare After Decades of Shadow War 

Fire fighters work outside a building that was hit by Israeli airstrikes north of Tehran, Iran, 13 June 2025. (EPA)
Fire fighters work outside a building that was hit by Israeli airstrikes north of Tehran, Iran, 13 June 2025. (EPA)

Israel said on Friday it carried out strikes in Iran, a day before talks between Iran and the US about Tehran's escalating uranium enrichment program were set to take place in Oman.

This marks the latest escalation since the war in Gaza began in 2023 and heightens fears of an all-out war between the two countries, whose history of enmity spans decades of clandestine conflicts and includes land, sea, air and cyber attacks.

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 Shiite there to set up Hezbollah. Israel will eventually see the armed 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 the country.

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 an 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 Quds Force, 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.

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

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

June 2025 - Israel carries out strikes in Iran it says were aimed at disrupting the country's nuclear infrastructure and targeted scientists working on a nuclear bomb in an operation that would continue for days.

Calling the offensive "Rising Lion," Israel says it was also targeting Iranian commanders and missile factories while declaring a state of emergency in anticipation of Iranian retaliation. Iranian state media reported the killing of Tehran's Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami and nuclear scientists Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi in the strike.

The US says it was not providing assistance for the operation. The strikes came a day after Trump said US personnel were being moved out of the Middle East because "it could be a dangerous place".



Fireworks, Warplanes and Axes: How France Celebrates Bastille Day

France's President Emmanuel Macron (center-L) and France's Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Bukhard (center-R) and French Military Governor of Paris (GMP) Loic Mizon (center-Top) review troops as they stand in the command car flanked by France's mounted Republican Guard (Guarde Republicaine) during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron (center-L) and France's Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Bukhard (center-R) and French Military Governor of Paris (GMP) Loic Mizon (center-Top) review troops as they stand in the command car flanked by France's mounted Republican Guard (Guarde Republicaine) during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
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Fireworks, Warplanes and Axes: How France Celebrates Bastille Day

France's President Emmanuel Macron (center-L) and France's Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Bukhard (center-R) and French Military Governor of Paris (GMP) Loic Mizon (center-Top) review troops as they stand in the command car flanked by France's mounted Republican Guard (Guarde Republicaine) during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron (center-L) and France's Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Bukhard (center-R) and French Military Governor of Paris (GMP) Loic Mizon (center-Top) review troops as they stand in the command car flanked by France's mounted Republican Guard (Guarde Republicaine) during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

Swooping warplanes, axe-carrying warriors, a drone light show over the Eiffel Tower and fireworks in nearly every French town — it must be Bastille Day.

France celebrated its biggest holiday Monday with 7,000 people marching, on horseback or riding armored vehicles along the cobblestones of the Champs-Elysees, the most iconic avenue in Paris. And there are plans for partying and pageantry around the country, said The Associated Press.

Why Bastille Day is a big deal

Parisians stormed the Bastille fortress and prison on July 14, 1789, a spark for the French Revolution that overthrew the monarchy. In the ensuing two centuries, France saw Napoleon’s empire rise and fall, more uprisings and two world wars before settling into today’s Fifth Republic, established in 1958.

Bastille Day has become a central moment for modern France, celebrating democratic freedoms and national pride, a mélange of revolutionary spirit and military prowess.

The Paris parade beneath the Arc de Triomphe so impressed visiting US President Donald Trump in 2017 that it inspired him to stage his own parade this year.

What stood out

The spectacle began on the ground, with French President Emmanuel Macron reviewing the troops and relighting the eternal flame beneath the Arc de Triomphe.

Two riders fell from their horses near the end of the parade, and it was unclear whether anyone was hurt. Such incidents happen occasionally at the annual event.

Each parade uniform has a touch of symbolism. The contingent from the French Foreign Legion was eye-catching, its bearded troops wearing leather aprons and carrying axes, a reference to their original role as route clearers for advancing armies.

The Paris event included flyovers by fighter jets, trailing red, white and blue smoke. Then the evening sees a drone light show and fireworks at the Eiffel Tower that has gotten more elaborate every year.

What’s special about this year

Every year, France hosts a special guest for Bastille Day, and this year it’s Indonesia, with President Prabowo Subianto representing the world’s largest Muslim country, which also a major Asian economic and military player.

Indonesian troops, including 200 traditional drummers, marched in Monday’s parade, and Indonesia is expected to confirm new purchases of Rafale fighter jets and other French military equipment during the visit. Prabowo, who was accused of rights abuses under Indonesia's prior dictatorship, will be treated to a special holiday dinner at the Elysée Palace.

“For us as Indonesian people, this is a very important and historic military and diplomatic collaboration,'' the commander of the Indonesian military delegation, Brig. Gen. Ferry Irawan, told The Associated Press.

Finnish troops serving in the UN force in Lebanon, and Belgian and Luxembourg troops serving in a NATO force in Romania also paraded through Paris, reflecting the increasingly international nature of the event.

Among the dignitaries invited to watch will be Fousseynou Samba Cissé, who rescued two babies from a burning apartment earlier this month and received a last-minute invitation in a phone call from Macron himself.

‘’I wasn't expecting that call,'' he told online media Brut. ‘’I feel pride.''

What’s the geopolitical backdrop

Beyond the military spectacle in Paris are growing concerns about an uncertain world. On the eve Bastille Day, Macron announced 6.5 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in extra French military spending in the next two years because of new threats ranging from Russia to terrorism and online attacks. The French leader called for intensified efforts to protect Europe and support for Ukraine.

‘’Since 1945, our freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously,″ Macron said. ’’We are experiencing a return to the fact of a nuclear threat, and a proliferation of major conflicts.″

Security was exceptionally tight around Paris ahead of and during the parade.

What else happens on Bastille Day

It’s a period when France bestows special awards — including the most prestigious, the Legion of Honor — on notable people. This year's recipients include Gisèle Pelicot, who became a global hero to victims of sexual violence during a four-month trial in which her husband and dozens of men were convicted of sexually assaulting her while she was drugged unconscious.

Others earning the honor are Yvette Levy, a Holocaust survivor and French Resistance fighter, and musician Pharrell Williams, designer for Louis Vuitton.

Bastille Day is also a time for family gatherings, firefighters' balls and rural festivals around France.