Some Basic Facts About the Iranian Attack on Israel

Genevieve Signoret & Delia Paredes

(Hay una versión en español de este artículo aquí.)

Iran and Israel have been fighting a shadow war for over 40 years. Iran, for example, is universally believed to finance, arm, and train proxy fighting groups opposed to the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and bent on destroying militarily or at least dismantle the Israeli state, and establish in its stead an Islamic Palestinian state.

In conducting this shadow war, over and over, both sides have violated international law.

It is likely that one such violation took place on April 1, when Israel launched a strike against the Iranian embassy in Damascus, thereby assassinating seven top generals and other senior leaders of  the Iranian Quds Force. This group conducts and organizes black operations in the Middle East, often against Israel.

International law views a country’s embassy in a foreign land as part of that country’s territory. Thus, the April 1 strike constituted an attack on Iranian territory. In that sense, the Israeli-Iranian conflict came out of the shadows. On the other hand, Israel does not admit to having conducted this strike. So its departure from the shadows was merely partial.

Last weekend’s direct attack on Israel by Iran firing hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles, and (guided) cruise missiles, however, was completely out in the open.

As noted earlier, in planning its attack, Iran took measures to contain the likelihood that it would lead to a wider open war—for example, with the United States. Namely, it warned Israel of the impending attack well in advance, it rolled out its attack slowly, and it avoided population centers, targeting remote Israeli military installations.

Note: In preparing this article, we consulted a wide variety of books and Internet sources. In doing so, we found this compact briefer by The New York Times to be especially useful.