Since launching its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israel also stepped up attacks on Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Syria. One such apparent strike occurred in early April when an Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital, Damascus, was hit, killing at least 13 people, including seven high-ranking members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Iran, Syria and Russia blamed Israel for the attack, though Israel itself did not comment on the incident.

"This [consulate attack] is in some way unprecedented. Israel is really upping the ante," Arash Azizi, a lecturer of history at Clemson University in South Carolina who specializes in Iran, told DW.

"It has changed the usual rules of engagement. Israel and Iran have been in something of a shadow war for a very long time, for more than a decade, but part of the rules was that you don't do actions like this, [like] attacking an Iranian consulate."

Revolutionary Guard commanders, like General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in 2020, have played a key role in training and financing Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, which has launched numerous attacks against Israel. Iran's leadership vowed to strike back at Israeli targets abroad in retaliation for the........

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