PARIS: They were allies when Iran was ruled by the shah but became foes after its Islamic revolution in 1979, and now Israel considers Iran an “existential threat.”
After Israeli strikes on Iranian targets inside Syria this week sent regional tensions soaring, here is a recap of their volatile relationship in the past half century.
On the creation of Israel in 1948, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, establishes close ties with the new country. At the time, Iran is home to the biggest Jewish community in the Middle East.
Israel sets up a major diplomatic mission in Tehran and imports 40 percent of its oil from the country in exchange for weapons, technology and agricultural produce.
Iran’s feared Savak secret police is created in 1957 with the help of the CIA and eventually Israel’s Mossad.
The special relationship ends with the 1979 revolution that topples the Shah, and Israel does not recognize the new Republic of Iran.
For the new authorities in Tehran, Israel becomes an “occupier” of Jerusalem and responsible for the “genocide” of Palestinians. Informal commercial links remain in place, however.
In 1982, Israel invades the Lebanese capital Beirut to put an end to attacks from Palestinian groups based there. It leads to the creation of the militant group Hezbollah at the initiative of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Hezbollah sets up in southern Lebanon, from where it wages a campaign against Israeli forces.
Israel blames Hezbollah for attacks on its interests abroad including in Argentina where the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy kills 29 people and a 1994 attack on a Jewish community center leaves 85 dead.
In 1998, Iran says it has successfully tested for the first time its Shahab-3 missiles, whose 1,300-kilometer (780-mile) range means it could reach Israeli territory.
It announces another succesful test in 2000, alarming Israel which fears its enemy is developing a nuclear capacity.
In 2005, new hard-line Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Israel is doomed to be “wiped off the map” and that the Holocaust was a “myth.”
This chimes with statements by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who refers to Israel as a “cancerous tumor” that should be cut out of the Middle East.
When Iran resumes uranium enrichment activities at Ispahan the same year, Israel calls on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.
When the Iran nuclear deal is brokered by world powers in 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slams it as an “historic mistake.” He gives his full backing to US President Donald Trump’s decision to retreat from the nuclear deal in May 2018.
Officially still at war with Syria, Israel claims to be trying to keep out of the conflict since it broke out in 2011. But from 2013 it becomes wary of the role played by Hezbollah and Iran on the side of Syrian President Bashar Assad against rebels and militants.
“We will not allow Iranian entrenchment in Syria no matter the price to pay,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman says in April.
On Thursday this week, Israel launches strikes on suspected Iranian positions in Syria, prompting concern that Hezbollah could retaliate.
Iran and Israel: From allies to foes
Iran and Israel: From allies to foes
- The special relationship ends with the 1979 revolution that topples the Shah, and Israel does not recognize the new Republic of Iran.
- In 1982, Hezbollah sets up in southern Lebanon, from where it wages a campaign against Israeli forces.
Palestinians wait at border between Gaza and Egypt as uncertainty clouds reopening of Rafah crossing
Palestinians wait at border between Gaza and Egypt as uncertainty clouds reopening of Rafah crossing
- At that pace, long waits are facing most of the roughly 20,000 sick and wounded people who Gaza’s Health Ministry has said need treatment abroad
- Reopening the crossing is considered key as the ceasefire agreement moves into a complicated second phase
- The bus with about 40 Palestinians that entered Gaza via Rafah on Tuesday arrived at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis early Wednesday morning, where their families welcomed them after spending the entire day waiting
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Palestinians gathered on both sides of Gaza’s border with Egypt on Tuesday hoping to pass through the Rafah crossing, after its reopening the previous day was marred by delays, interrogations and uncertainty over who would be allowed to cross.
On the Egyptian side were Palestinians who fled Gaza earlier in the Israel-Hamas war to seek medical treatment, according to Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News television. On the Gaza side, Palestinians in need of medical care that is unavailable in Gaza gathered at a hospital before ambulances moved toward Rafah, hoping for word that they would be allowed to cross the other way.
The office of the North Sinai governor confirmed Tuesday that an unknown number of patients and their companions had crossed from Gaza into Egypt.
The bus with about 40 Palestinians that entered Gaza via Rafah on Tuesday arrived at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis early Wednesday morning, where their families welcomed them after spending the entire day waiting.
Though hailed as a step forward for the fragile ceasefire struck in October, it took more than 10 hours for only about a dozen returnees and a small group of medical evacuees to cross in each direction on the first day Rafah reopened.
Three women who crossed into Gaza on Monday told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Israeli troops blindfolded and handcuffed them, then interrogated and threatened them, holding them for several hours before they were released.
The numbers permitted to cross on Monday fell well short of the 50 people that officials had said would be allowed each way and barely began to address the needs of tens of thousands of Palestinians who are hoping to be evacuated for treatment or to return home.
The import of humanitarian aid or goods through Rafah remains prohibited.
’Not a solution to the crisis’
Evacuation efforts on Tuesday morning converged around a Red Crescent hospital in Khan Younis, where a World Health Organization team arrived and a vehicle carrying patients and their relatives rolled in from another hospital. Then the group of WHO vehicles and Palestinian ambulances headed toward Rafah to await crossing.
As the sick, wounded and displaced waited to cross in both directions, health officials said the small number allowed to exit so far paled beside Gaza’s tremendous needs. Two years of fighting destroyed much of its medical infrastructure and left hospitals struggling to treat trauma injuries, amputations and chronic conditions like cancer.
In Gaza City, Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiya called the pace “crisis management, not a solution to the crisis,” imploring Israel to permit the importing of medical supplies and equipment. He wrote on Facebook: “Denying the evacuation of patients and preventing the entry of medicines is a death sentence for them.”
UN and WHO officials said the trickle of patients allowed out and restrictions on bringing in desperately needed supplies are prolonging a disastrous situation in Gaza.
“Rafah must function as a real humanitarian corridor so we can have a surge in aid deliveries,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN’s top relief official.
Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson Raed Al-Nims told AP that only 16 patients with chronic conditions or war wounds, accompanied by 40 relatives, were brought from Khan Younis to the Gaza side of Rafah on Tuesday — less than the 45 patients and wounded the Red Crescent was told would be allowed.
After days of anticipation over the reopening, hope lingered that it might mark a meaningful first step. In Khan Younis, Iman Rashwan waited for hours until her mother and sister returned from Egypt, hoping others would soon see their loved ones again.
Waiting on both sides
Officials say the number of crossings could gradually increase if the system works, with Israel and Egypt vetting those allowed in and out. But security concerns and bureaucratic snags quickly tempered expectations raised by officials who for weeks had cast reopening as a major step in the ceasefire deal.
There were delays on Monday over disagreements about luggage allowances. Returnees were carrying more than anticipated with them, requiring additional negotiations, a person familiar with the situation told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the diplomatic matter.
“They didn’t let us cross with anything,” Rotana Al-Regeb said as she returned around midnight Monday to Khan Younis. “They emptied everything before letting us through. We were only allowed to take the clothes on our backs and one bag per person.”
The initial number of Palestinians allowed to cross is mostly symbolic. Israeli and Egyptian officials have said that 50 medical evacuees would depart — along with two caregiver escorts — and 50 Palestinians who left during the war would return.
At that pace, long waits are facing most of the roughly 20,000 sick and wounded people who Gaza’s Health Ministry has said need treatment abroad. About 150 hospitals across Egypt are ready to receive patients, authorities said.
Who and what would be allowed through Rafah was a central concern for both Israel and Egypt.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that anyone who wants to leave will eventually be permitted to do so, but Egypt has repeatedly said the Rafah crossing must open in both directions, fearing Israel could use it to push Palestinians out of Gaza.
Reopening the crossing is considered key as the ceasefire agreement moves into a complicated second phase. That calls for installing a new Palestinian committee to govern Gaza, deploying an international security force, disarming Hamas and taking steps to begin rebuilding.
In a meeting Tuesday with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Jerusalem, Netayanhu repeated Israel’s “uncompromising demand” that Hamas be disarmed before any reconstruction begins, the prime minister’s office said.
A 19-year-old killed in southern Gaza
Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said Ahmed Abdel-Al, 19, was shot and killed by Israeli troops on Tuesday morning in a part of the southern Gaza City, some distance away from the area under the Israeli military’s control.
Israel’s military said it was not immediately aware of any shootings in the area.
Abdel-Al was the latest of the 529 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since the Oct. 10 start of the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. They are among more than 71,800 Palestinians killed since the start of the war, according to the ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The ministry, part of Gaza’s Hamas-led government, keeps detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
