Middle East Crisis: Netanyahu Offers Full-Throated Defense of Gaza War

In his speech to Congress on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel addressed the threat to his country posed by Iran, which has clashed with Israel for decades.

He also portrayed Iran as a dangerous enemy of the United States and emphasized the role Israel has played as America’s strongest ally in the Middle East.

“When we fight Iran, we are fighting the most radical and dangerous” opponent of America, Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “We are not only protecting ourselves, we are protecting you.”

Ever since the 1979 revolution that made Iran a Shiite Muslim theocracy, the country has been isolated and has seen itself as besieged. Iran considers the United States and Israel its biggest enemies, and its leaders have long vowed to destroy Israel. It also wants to establish itself as the most powerful nation in the Persian Gulf region, where its chief rival is Saudi Arabia, an American ally.

For the United States and its allies, concerns about Iran are often focused on the risk that it could develop a nuclear weapon. But for Israel, the threat is much more immediate, with Iran using proxies in other countries to strike Israeli interests.

Here are some ways that Iran has clashed with Israel.

Through Hamas: This Palestinian group has received weapons and training from Iran and has fought repeated wars with Israel. Iranian officials have publicly denied being involved in or ordering Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people. But they also praised the assault as a momentous achievement and warned that their regional network would open multiple fronts against Israel if the country kept up its retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza.

Through Hezbollah: A Lebanon-based militia that is widely considered to be the most powerful and sophisticated of the Iran-allied forces, Hezbollah was founded in the 1980s with Iranian assistance, specifically to fight the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. The group, which is also a political party in Lebanon, has fought multiple wars and border skirmishes with Israel.

Hezbollah has been trading fire across the border with Israel’s military almost daily since the Oct. 7 attack, and the risk of all-out war is higher than ever. A cease-fire in Gaza could reduce that threat.

Through the Houthis: The Houthi movement in Yemen launched an insurgency against the government two decades ago. What was once a ragtag rebel force gained power thanks at least in part to covert military aid from Iran, according to American and Middle Eastern officials and analysts.

Since the war in Gaza began, the Houthis have waged what they call a campaign in solidarity with Palestinians. They have disrupted a significant part of the world’s shipping by attacking vessels heading to or from the Suez Canal and have launched missiles and drones at Israel, including a drone that hit an apartment building in Tel Aviv last week, killing one person. Israel hit a Yemeni port in retaliation.

Direct attacks: Israel has long carried out targeted assassinations of Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists, but in April it took the bold step of killing several high-ranking Iranian officials in a strike on an Iranian government building in Syria.

Senior Israeli officials believed that such a brazen assault would act as a deterrent against Iran. Instead, the attack achieved the opposite, prompting Iran to target Israel with one of the largest barrages of ballistic missiles and drones in military history and turning what had been a shadow war into a more open conflict. Israel responded with a more limited strike.