Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel after vowing retaliation for a deadly strike on its consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus.

Israel has not said it carried out the consulate strike, but is widely believed to have been behind it.

It is the first time that Iran has attacked Israel directly.

Previously Israel and Iran had been engaged in a years-long shadow war – attacking each other’s assets without admitting responsibility.

Those attacks have ratcheted up considerably during the current war in Gaza sparked by the Palestinian group Hamas’s assault on nearby Israeli communities last October.

The two countries were allies until the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which brought in a regime that has used opposing Israel as a key part of its ideology.

Iran does not recognise Israel’s right to exist and seeks its eradication.

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