Why did Iran attack Israel and what could happen next?

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Iran has launched its first ever direct attack on Israeli soil, leaving the world waiting to see how Tel Aviv will respond amid fears of a wider conflict developing in the Middle East.

In a sharp escalation of the tensions roiling in the region since Israel’s war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s attack on 7 October, Tehran launched a barrage of more than 330 killer drones, ballistic and cruise missiles towards Israel on Saturday night.

Britain and the US were among several of Israel’s allies who helped to shoot down the missiles, and Israeli authorities insisted that 99 per cent of them were shot down without causing any significant damage.

But with members of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet vowing to “exact a price” from Iran, which has said it considers the matter “concluded”, Tel Aviv’s response looks set to determine whether the confrontation with its longstanding foe continues to escalate.

Follow our live blog on the attack here

Decades of shadow warfare

Israel and Iran have been engaged in shadow warfare for decades, with a long history of clandestine attacks by land, sea, air and cyberspace, which Tehran conducts via its various proxies and allies in the region.

The two nations had formerly been allies until Iran’s pro-Western leader Mohammed Reza Shah was swept from power in the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which installed a new theocratic regime whose opposition to Israel was an ideological imperative.

Over the following years, with Israel invading Lebanon in 1982, Iran’s new regime would work with fellow Shi’ite Muslims there to establish Hezbollah, the group Israel would eventually come to regard as the most dangerous adversary on its borders.

Over the intervening decades, Israel has been unable to suppress Hezbollah – even following a month-long war in 2006 – as it warily eyed Tehran’s moves to develop its own faltering nuclear programme.

Tehran’s efforts to enrich uranium, first revealed as far back as 2002, quickly set alarm bells ringing in Israel, with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei having repeatedly described Israel as a “cancerous tumour” which “will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed” over his now decades-long rule.

Meanwhile, Israel has continued to trade fire with Iran through the guise of the latter’s proxies and allies, with Iran notably funding and arming Hamas, the militant group with whom Israel is now waging a devastating war in Gaza, which reported to claimed more than 32,000 lives and is serving to fracture international support for Israel.

The outbreak of that brutal conflict had heightened fears of an escalation in the region, with Hezbollah and Israel trading constant fire since it broke out in October.

But on Saturday, the decades-old shadow war between Israel and Iran threatened to cross over into direct conflict, as Tehran openly fired hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel in an attack it dubbed Operation True Promise.

What happened in the build-up to Saturday’s attack?

Iran’s mission to the UN said it considered the matter “concluded” in lieu of an Israeli response, and said it was retaliation for a strike on an Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on 1 April, which killed several of Tehran’s senior military commanders.

The strike – widely believed to have been carried out by Israel – marked one of the most significant attacks yet on Iranian interests in Syria, where Israel has stepped up a long-running military campaign against Iran and groups it backs.

Amid threats of retaliation from Iran, US president Joe Biden cut short his weekend trip to Delaware on Saturday to confer with his national security advisers.

Hours later, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, saying the vessel was linked to Israel.

But the full attack finally materialised late on Saturday night with reports that drones and missiles had been fired from Iran towards Israel, which would take several hours to arrive.

How did the attack unfold?

Iraq and Jordan both quickly closed their airspace, while the IDF confirmed Mr Netanyahu’s plane was airborne. The premier soon convened his war cabinet, as the IDF vowed to try and stop the missiles from entering Israeli airspace, which were expected to arrive at around 2am local time.

Israel brought in temporary restrictions closing schools and banning gatherings of more than 1,000 people, and instructed residents to stay close to bomb shelters in the northern part of the occupied Golan Heights, as well as Nevatim, Dimona and Eilat, which housed suspected targets for Iran’s attack.

British and American warplanes were soon reported to have downed several missiles, in an operation which the IDF later said had been conducted with several partners in the region.

Israel claimed on Sunday to have shot down 99 per cent of the missiles, and insisted the Nevatim air base remained operational throughout the night and following day despite having been struck in the attack – alleging that around 350 missiles in total had been fired from Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A seven-year-old girl remained in life-threatening condition with serious head injuries on Sunday, after shrapnel from an intercepted ballistic missile fell directly on her family’s home in a Bedouin town in Israel’s southern Negev region, the Times of Israel reported.

What could happen next?

All eyes remain on Israel to see how Tel Aviv will choose to respond, as its allies called for restraint while vowing to protect Israel against future attacks from Iran.

Mr Netanyahu’s five-member war cabinet met on Sunday and was expected to convene further for discussions, with Reuters reporting officials as saying that it favoured a retaliation against Iran, but was divided over the timing and scale.

While Mr Biden was reported to have warned that Washington would not assist in any retaliation, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said: “We will build a regional coalition and exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us.”

For its part, the Iranian army’s chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri told broadcasters: “Our response will be much larger than tonight’s military action if Israel retaliates against Iran.”