Israel’s attack on Iran was years in the making. How did they get here?

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s massive strike on Iran on Friday morning came after decades of mutual hostility and a long-running shadow war of covert strikes and sabotage.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long identified Iran as its greatest threat, citing the country’s nuclear program, its hostile rhetoric and support for anti-Israel militant groups across the region. Iran has championed the Palestinian cause and portrayed Israel as a malicious Western encroachment on the Middle East.

The latest escalation was set in motion by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which sparked a crushing Israeli response and eventually drew in Iran’s other allies, who were in turn crippled by successive waves of Israeli strikes, leaving Iran largely alone in facing Friday’s onslaught.

Here’s a closer look:

Why are Israel and Iran enemies?

Following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the country’s leadership immediately identified the U.S., Britain and Israel as its main enemies because of their ties to Iran’s deposed monarch and the long history of Western colonialism and military interventions in the Middle East.

Over the past two decades, Israel has repeatedly accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons and is believed to have carried out numerous covert attacks on its nuclear program, including cyberattacks and the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists -- while rarely acknowledging such operations.

Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, but the U.N. atomic watchdog agency has warned that Tehran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels to make “several” nuclear bombs if it chooses to.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and Western nations assess Iran had an organized nuclear weapons program until 2003. Iran insists its program is peaceful while still enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels.

Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat and had long aspired to breaking up Iran’s regional network of allies -- including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who was overthrown in December.

“For decades, the tyrants of Tehran have brazenly, openly called for Israel’s destruction,” Netanyahu said Friday. “They backed up their genocidal rhetoric with a program to develop nuclear weapons.”

Iran’s Axis of Resistance has been weakened

Over the past four decades, Iran built up a network of militant proxy groups it called the " Axis of Resistance " that wielded significant power across the region in recent years but has suffered major setbacks since the Oct. 7 attack.

Hamas’ military capabilities have been decimated in more than 20 months of ongoing war that has also killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed much of the Gaza Strip, displaced around 90% of its population and raised fears of famine.

Hezbollah traded strikes with Israel for nearly a year before Israel clobbered it with a sophisticated attack involving pagers and walkie-talkies, targeted strikes that killed most of its leaders and an air and ground campaign that devastated southern Lebanon.

The weakening of Hezbollah contributed to the downfall of Assad, which paved the way for Israel to seize parts of southern Syria and carry out strikes that destroyed much of its military assets.

Iran itself was weakened after two previous exchanges of fire with Israel, both linked to the war in Gaza. A wave of Israeli strikes last October destroyed missile sites and weakened Iran’s air defenses.

Why did Israel decide to strike now?

Netanyahu said time was running out to strike Iran, alleging Iran had taken recent steps to weaponize enriched uranium. “If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon within a very short time,” he said.

The United States and Israel have long vowed to take military action if necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, but President Donald Trump has been seeking a diplomatic solution after scrapping an earlier nuclear agreement with Iran during his first term.

A sixth round of talks was scheduled in Oman on Sunday, but it was unclear if they would be held in the aftermath of the strikes.

Israel has long been skeptical of such efforts, fearing they give Iran time to develop a weapon, and has said it would only accept an agreement in which Iran gives up its entire nuclear program -- something Iran has vehemently ruled out.

On Thursday, for the first time in 20 years, the board of governors at the IAEA censured Iran for not working with its inspectors. Iran immediately announced it would establish a third enrichment site and swap out some centrifuges for more advanced ones.

Trump said he had asked Netanyahu not to attack Iran while the negotiations are ongoing, but the president has provided unprecedented support to Israel over the years, and his administration has so far expressed no opposition to Friday’s strikes.

Melanie Lidman, The Associated Press