Late on 13 April 2024, Iran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at Israel in a direct assault it said was retaliation for an Israeli strike on its consular compound in Damascus two weeks earlier. It was the first time Iran had attacked Israel from its own territory, crossing a threshold that had defined their decades-long shadow war.
Israel, with help from the United States, Britain, France and Jordan, intercepted the vast majority of the weapons, and the attack caused only modest damage and a handful of injuries. The Biden administration pressed Israel to treat the defence as the win, and Israel’s limited response against Iranian air-defence systems around Isfahan left both sides with a face-saving pause.
The night reshaped the region’s strategic map. What had been a covert exchange of strikes and sabotage moved into open, if carefully measured, direct confrontation, and every subsequent escalation between the two countries, including the missile exchanges of late 2024, has been read against the template set in April.