The first direct Iranian attack on its arch-foe after a suspected air strike on Tehran's embassy compound in Damascus on April 1 is part of a wider escalation since the war in Gaza began last year, but their enmity stretches back decades. Iran and Israel -- the Middle East's most implacable foes -- have a long history of shadow wars and clandestine attacks by land, sea, air and cyberspace. 1979 - Iran's pro-Western leader Mohammed Reza Shah, who regarded Israel as an ally, is swept from power in an Islamic Revolution that installs a new theocratic regime with its opposition to Israel an ideological imperative.