Timeline: How did the Israel-Iran conflict escalate?

Published connected 13/06/2025 - 13:43 GMT+2•Updated 14:02

Israel and Iran’s decades-long conflict burst into unfastened confrontation Friday, arsenic Israeli airstrikes struck heavy wrong Iran, targeting what Israel claimed were atomic and subject facilities. 

Explosions echoed done Tehran and nan remainder of nan country, and Iranian authorities media later reported nan deaths of astatine slightest 7 of its top-ranking subject commanders and six apical atomic scientists. 

The unprecedented onslaught marked a melodramatic escalation successful nan conflict that has agelong simmered successful proxy conflicts and covert operations, arsenic Israel has consistently identified Iran’s atomic arms ambitions arsenic an existential threat.

What are immoderate of nan cardinal moments successful nan Israel-Iran conflict that now threatens to grow into an all-out warfare betwixt nan 2 nations?

Computer bugs and centrifuge works explosions

In 2010, nan find of nan Stuxnet machine microorganism — wide attributed to US and Israeli intelligence — disrupted Iranian centrifuges.

Eight years later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed Israel had obtained a trove of documents from a Tehran warehouse, purporting to show Iran’s efforts to conceal atomic activity earlier nan 2015 statement pinch world powers.

Following nan illness of that atomic accord, sabotage efforts against Iran’s programme intensified. 

A July 2020 detonation severely damaged a centrifuge works astatine Natanz, while later that year, apical atomic intelligence Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated adjacent Tehran, reportedly via an Israeli remote-controlled weapon.

In 2021, Iran again blamed Israel for a blackout astatine Natanz, and soon after, began enriching uranium to 60% purity.

By 2022, allegations escalated further, pinch Iran accusing Israel of poisoning 2 of its atomic scientists without providing proof.

Hamas onslaught sparks further fears of war

The 7 October 2023 Hamas onslaught connected confederate Israel, which killed 1,200 and triggered nan Israel-Hamas warfare successful Gaza, intensified location tensions.

Iran, a cardinal backer of Hamas, expressed support for nan group, further straining its already fraught relations pinch Israel.

Sabotage and airstrikes soon followed. In early 2024, an Israeli cognition damaged an Iranian state pipeline, and a rocket onslaught connected 1 April destroyed Iran’s consulate successful Damascus, sidesplitting 2 generals and 14 different individuals. 

In response, Iran launched much than 300 missiles and drones successful a nonstop onslaught connected Israel, astir of which were intercepted.

The tit-for-tat continued done mid and precocious 2024. Israeli strikes killed high-profile figures, including Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, arsenic good arsenic Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, prompting further Iranian rocket launches and heightening fears of location war. 

October saw Israel behaviour its first overt strikes wrong Iran, targeting aerial defences and missile-related sites. 

More recently, successful April, Iran executed a man it accused of moving pinch Israel's Mossad overseas intelligence agency and being progressive successful nan 2022 assassination of Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei.