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".



Russia's Growing Energy Ties with China since the Ukraine War

Flags of China and Russia are displayed in this illustration picture taken March 24, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights
Flags of China and Russia are displayed in this illustration picture taken March 24, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights
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Russia's Growing Energy Ties with China since the Ukraine War

Flags of China and Russia are displayed in this illustration picture taken March 24, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights
Flags of China and Russia are displayed in this illustration picture taken March 24, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights

China has increased purchases of Russian oil and gas since ‌the start of the conflict with Ukraine in 2022, with Moscow and Beijing declaring a "no limits" partnership just days before the war began. The energy relationship between the two countries is expected to be an important topic when presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping meet in Beijing on Wednesday.

Here are some facts about the energy ties between the two countries:

GAS

Russia's energy giant Gazprom supplies natural gas to China through a 3,000-km (1,865 mile) pipeline called Power of Siberia under a 30-year, $400 billion deal launched at the end of 2019.

In 2025, exports jumped by around a quarter to 38.8 billion cubic meters (bcm), exceeding the pipeline's planned annual capacity of 38 bcm.

During Putin's visit to China in September, the countries agreed to increase annual volumes on the route by an additional 6 bcm, to 44 bcm, a year. In February 2022, China also agreed to buy up to 10 bcm of gas annually ‌by 2027 via ‌a pipeline from Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East. The countries later ‌agreed ⁠to raise the ⁠volumes to 12 bcm.

Russia's gas exports to China are still a small fraction of the record 177 bcm it delivered to Europe in 2018-19 annually.

Russia's share in European Union gas imports has shrunk during the Ukraine war, particularly in pipeline flows. Russia remained the EU's second-largest liquefied natural gas supplier last year with a 16% share but the gap with the EU's main LNG partner, the United States, widened considerably. Russia and China are still in talks about a new Power of Siberia 2 pipeline capable of delivering 50 bcm of gas per year ⁠from Russia to China via Mongolia.

Gazprom began a feasibility study for the ‌pipeline in 2020, but the project has gained urgency as Russia ‌turns to China to replace Europe as its major gas customer. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said in September that the ‌countries signed a "legally binding memorandum" on the pipeline, but a firm contract is still elusive.

Russia's liquefied natural ‌gas exports to China rose last year by 18.2% to 9.79 million metric tons, according to China's customs data, cited by TASS news agency.

Russia was, after Australia and Qatar, the third-largest supplier of LNG to China, which is the world's largest buyer of seaborne gas.

OIL China is Moscow's top client for oil shipments via the sea and pipelines. Exports have been ‌high amid Western sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine. China's imports from Russia were at 2.01 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2025 (or 100.72 ⁠million metric tons in ⁠total), a decline of 7.1%, according to China's General Administration of Customs. That represented 20% of China's total imported oil by volume.

Yury Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy aide, said Russian oil exports to China grew by 35% in the first quarter of 2026 to 31 million tons.

China, which is the world's top oil importer, primarily buys Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) crude exported via the Skovorodino-Mohe spur of the 4,070-km (2,540-mile) ESPO pipeline, which connects Russian oil fields to refineries in China and from the Russian Far East port of Kozmino. Russia's oil pipeline operator Transneft has said it was expanding the ESPO pipeline to increase exports via Kozmino, seeking to complete the expansion work in 2029. China also imports oil from the Pacific island of Sakhalin, taking Sakhalin Blend and Sokol oil grades. The availability of ESPO Blend oil has remained high since July 2025, when exports had been expanded to 1 million barrels per day. Transneft has kept exports via Kozmino at around this level.

Russia has also agreed to raise its oil exports to China via Kazakhstan through the Atasu-Alashankou pipeline by 2.5 million tons per year to 12.5 million tons.


Mohammed Awda Emerges as New Qassam Brigades Chief after Killing of Al-Haddad

Palestinian Hamas fighters stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 22, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinian Hamas fighters stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 22, 2025. (Reuters)
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Mohammed Awda Emerges as New Qassam Brigades Chief after Killing of Al-Haddad

Palestinian Hamas fighters stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 22, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinian Hamas fighters stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 22, 2025. (Reuters)

Multiple Hamas sources in the Gaza Strip revealed that the movement’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, is now led by Mohammed Awda, succeeding Ezzedine al-Haddad, who was killed by Israel last Friday after decades of pursuit.

Three Hamas sources in Gaza told Asharq Al-Awsat that Awda had effectively been selected to command the Qassam.

He was close to al-Haddad and remained in regular contact with him, particularly over plans to “rebuild the organizational structure” after the killings of former Qassam commanders Mohammed Deif and Mohammed Sinwar, they added.

Since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, Israel has eliminated a series of Qassam commanders and key figures involved in planning and directing Hamas’s attack on Israeli communities near Gaza during nearly two years of war in the enclave.

One source said Awda, who headed military intelligence within the Qassam at the time of the Oct. 7 attack, had been offered leadership of the armed wing after the killing of Mohammed Sinwar in May 2025, but declined, leading the role to pass to al-Haddad.

The two other sources said they could not independently verify that account.

Awda appears to face no serious rival for the position as he remains one of the core members of the movement’s military council. The only other surviving member of the original council is home front commander Imad Aqel, whom Hamas sources said did not play a direct role in planning or supervising the Oct. 7 operation, unlike “other commanders who were not informed of the full details or even the zero hour.”

Military intelligence role

Awda previously oversaw military intelligence operations in Gaza, including gathering information on Israeli military positions around the enclave.

Sources said he also supervised the exploitation of surveillance equipment uncovered after an Israeli undercover unit infiltrated Gaza and remained there for an extended period before being exposed in November 2018. Hamas officials at the time described the information recovered from the devices as an “intelligence treasure.”

The military intelligence branch under Awda concentrated heavily on identifying vulnerabilities in the Israeli army’s Gaza Division.

According to the sources, Awda later assumed responsibility for the northern sector after al-Haddad became commander of the Qassam Brigades. In that role, he coordinated with newly appointed commanders in Gaza City and northern Gaza while continuing to oversee intelligence operations.

Early Hamas ties

Sources said Awda’s relationship with Hamas dates back to the first Palestinian intifada, which erupted in 1987. He also spent time in the “Majd” security apparatus established by slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to pursue Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.

Believed to be in his late forties or early fifties, Awda ranked among the early members of the Qassam Brigades during the second intifada, which began in late 2000.

He is originally from the Khulafaa al-Rashideen area of Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

For years, the area functioned as a military hub for the Qassam Brigades. Mohammed Deif and several senior commanders were based there, and it became an early meeting point between Deif and a generation of future Qassam leaders, including Awda.

Although Awda’s career has been closely associated with intelligence and security operations, he also advanced through field command positions.

He served for several years as commander of the central Jabalia battalion, worked in military manufacturing and later headed the “northern brigade” between 2017 and 2019.

During his tenure as northern brigade commander, Awda hosted Mohammed Sinwar, then responsible for overseeing the Brigades’ military and strategic operations.

Hamas sources credit Awda with playing a major role in transforming the military intelligence branch into one of the most influential divisions in the Qassam.

“Awda has always preferred intelligence work and avoided direct field operations,” one Hamas source said. “He also avoids relying on personal guards or drivers, preferring to move alone because of his strict security precautions.”

Awda has reportedly survived several assassination attempts, both before and during the Gaza war. After the ceasefire of Oct. 10, 2025, his father’s home in Jabalia refugee camp was bombed, killing his eldest son, Amr.


In War‑Scarred Gaza, Brides Turn to Refurbished Wedding Dresses

 Palestinians attend a mass wedding for 50 couples organized by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation in Gaza City, May 11, 2026. (Reuters)
Palestinians attend a mass wedding for 50 couples organized by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation in Gaza City, May 11, 2026. (Reuters)
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In War‑Scarred Gaza, Brides Turn to Refurbished Wedding Dresses

 Palestinians attend a mass wedding for 50 couples organized by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation in Gaza City, May 11, 2026. (Reuters)
Palestinians attend a mass wedding for 50 couples organized by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation in Gaza City, May 11, 2026. (Reuters)

In a small sewing workshop in southern Gaza, Nisreen Al-Rantisi pulls fabric from a pile and reshapes worn wedding dresses, trying to keep a fading tradition alive amid war and soaring costs.

Families said they have been struggling to find new wedding dresses and many search instead for places that refurbish gowns and other kinds of clothes for their children.

Importers cite delays, high shipping costs, and restrictions on materials, such as the crystals encrusted into the elaborate wedding dresses, as key factors behind the shortages ‌and price hikes.

Many workshops ‌have also been damaged during the conflict.

“We try ‌to ⁠reuse the old ⁠gowns that we have, produce them by fixing them a bit, work on them, wash them, arrange them, shape them,” said Rantisi, adding that work initially relied on a bicycle-powered sewing machine due to electricity shortages.

Rantisi said she used to buy the fabric for about 120 to 150 shekels ($41 to $51) before the war, but now pays around 500 shekels ($171).

“This has caused a big rise ⁠in the cost of bridal dresses and children’s gowns. We ‌are living in a vicious circle ‌from the war that affected us,” she added.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that controls ‌access to Gaza, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Most ‌of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been displaced, many now living in bombed-out homes and makeshift tents pitched on open ground, roadsides, or atop the ruins of destroyed buildings after two years of war with Israel.

HIGH PRICES BEYOND REACH ‌FOR MOST IN GAZA

Despite the hardships, some couples still find ways to celebrate, with mass weddings held in ⁠Gaza offering a ⁠rare moment of joy amid the devastation.

Shop workers say the war has driven prices beyond reach.

“Before the war, prices were reasonable for everyone,” said Rawan Shalouf, an employee at a bridal shop.

“But now, given the circumstances we’re in, the price of a dress is ridiculous.”

Across Gaza, brides and families are struggling to afford even basic wedding needs. Shahed Fayez, 21, is due to marry in about four days but has been searching in vain for a dress.

“I don’t care about its style, what’s important is that it's new,” she added.

“The cheapest dress is $1,000 or more, that's the minimum, and all we have is less than $200. The entire dowry does not cover the price of a dress.”