We're going to be talking about the Iran situation again today, but I do not want to forget about Gaza. The war continues there, and so does the mass death that comes along with it.

Little how much holds his tiny brother's hand and carries a bag of flour.

The other day, a huge group of Palestinians said they got word that they would be allowed to return to whatever is left of their homes in Gaza City, even though there was no such official announcement. But when they got to a checkpoint, all they found was a bloodbath.

They say Israeli soldiers opened fire as young men tried crossing the checkpoint with women and children. Several were injured. Among them five year old Sally. She was in her mother's arms when she was shot in the head.

The Israeli military didn't comment on Sally's injury and said the north remains a war zone. No one is allowed to return. Meanwhile, famine is still an urgent concern. More aid trucks have moved across the border into the north, but there continues to be issues with actually distributing it. And with all of that as a backdrop, the entire Middle East is watching and waiting for Israel's next move after Iran's unprecedented aerial attack. Whatever happens next could plunge the region into full blown chaos. But because all of this is so unprecedented, does anybody have a playbook to pull from?

Prime Minister Netanyahu has to calculate that the rules of the game have changed with Iran, and he's now got to predict what the new rules are.

Today, how decades of shadow warfare between Israel and Iran suddenly moved into the spotlight from CNN, this is Tug of War. I'm David Rind.

Nic Robertson is back with us today. He is CNN's international diplomatic editor is in Jerusalem. And so, Nic, as we sit here on Thursday, we are still waiting to see if Israel will respond to this Iranian attack. But like for those unfamiliar with the region and all the history here, can you tell us a little bit about where this beef between Israel and Iran started? Like, how far back does this go?

You could say it goes back millennia, but I think more recently you would look at the Islamic revolution in Iran, 1979, and the theocracy that established itself in Iran chose to support the cause of Palestinians in Israel, in the West occupied West Bank, in Gaza as a cause, to many would argue, curry favor with with Arab states in the region. And the state of Iran calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. They deny its right to exist. And this is deep. And for Israel, the threat from Iran is existential.

And of course, Iran, no fan of the U.S. as well. So I imagine they see that alliance as particularly troublesome.

They see Israel as an arm of the United States interests in the region which run counter to their interests.

And so a lot of this conflict had been kind of operated in the shadows, right through proxies and kind of covert attacks.

That's been the history, that the way that Iran strikes back at Israel has been through Hezbollah in Lebanon, through their proxies in Syria, through proxies in Iraq, when they can through proxies in Yemen. And there's certainly a strong case made that they fund and support, train, give ideas to Hamas inside the West Bank, inside of Gaza, all of which to destabilize the Israeli state.

And so you wrote on CNN.com about a couple of past incidents, past Israeli operations, that maybe can tell us something about what we're seeing now. So tell me about those.

Israel's fought a number of wars with its Arab neighbors over the years, and it sees threats from those neighbors as existential.

South of the city, in an area where cameras are not permitted. Is the nuclear reactor hit by Israeli jets? Drive over a picture of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein? The newspaper Code of Syria carries a banner headline saying everyone condemns Israel.

When Israel saw that Iraq was developing a nuclear facility. They decided that that was an existential threat. They sent fighter jets to destroy it, and it was bombed in 1981 and then 2007.

The target no one's officially talking about. Israeli warplanes hit something inside Syria.

They realized that Syria was developing a nuclear facility as well, with systems purchased from North Korea. They developed a plan to destroy that and again sent jets to destroy it.

No Israeli official has confirmed an attack even took place, let alone provided any details.

It was a complex operation, sophisticated. It was 11 years before Israel actually acknowledged the strike in Syria.

While they didn't admit to it for over a decade, they didn't.

That's the way that Israel operates. It operates with a great deal of secrecy because in part because if it openly accepts that it's done it, then that gives the other side legitimacy to strike back. That ambiguity is supposed to give a level of protection, if you will. It's it's it's one of multiple veneers of protection.

But I guess then in this case, like if something happens in Iran that seems a little shady, like, isn't everybody going to know that this was Israel?

Of course, they point the finger at Israel and their and their proxies in the region will take up the cry and say it is Israel. And there's very often strong and credible and leading evidence that would point to Israel, an Israeli hand behind it. But proving it can often be hard. I mean, access in Iran for independent reporting is incredibly difficult. So when the top Iranian nuclear physicist is assassinated, the assumption would be Israel was behind it. But to independently be on the ground and and test test the accusations is hard.

And in terms of the actual things that we could see, like an assassination you're saying is on the table, like what else could possibly be in the playbook?

It's hard to know what could be in the playbook, but it could run from attacking airbases to attacking nuclear facilities to attacking through cyber, trying to shut down, you know, various facilities, power structures, whatever it may be. But to send, send this very clear, strong signal to, to the Iranian leadership that this is a strike back. It could be targeted assassinations. It could also be that Israel does what the United States says and takes this as a win. I think it's worth it's worth noting Iran's strike on Israel was not theater. This was intended to take out military bases.

Yeah, I wanted to ask about that because some people have been speculating that, oh, they knew that all of this stuff was going to get shot down and that would kind of accomplish their symbolism. But you're saying that they really did want to cause harm.

Who knows what was in precisely in the mind of the Iranian leadership. But they launched a bigger attack on Israel than any of the sophisticated air attacks that Russia has launched on Ukraine in the last two years of war. That tells you something. Yes. The drones take many hours. And yes, Iran did inform neighboring countries that something was coming in the next 72 hours. But this defense system that Israel was able to put in place with allies did a job that I think even the Israelis didn't expect it to do, and certainly the allies didn't expect it to do. Iran very likely hoped for a better outcome. We know that the air alerts that Israel put out to to the civilian population over the weekend told people in Dimona, where the nuclear facility is, to seek and take cover. So it's clear that Israel knew that Iran was targeting the nuclear facility. And so this tells you several things. It perhaps explains, in part why Iran over the weekend, according to the IAEA, Director General Rafael Grossi, had shut down their nuclear facilities expecting the possibility of a very quick retaliation, which we understand was on the cards, a quick retaliation. But this also may signal that Israel is putting out in the public domain information about what Iran targeted. It was a nuclear facility, which to some people, would give legitimacy for Israel to strike an Iranian nuclear facility or its mind games, or they or they are just messing with the Iranians to the extent of maybe this is what we'll target.

More with Nick in just a bit. Welcome back to Tug of War and my conversation with CNN's Nic Robertson. You mentioned the other countries in the region. How are they feeling about this very tenuous moment?

It's difficult. Neither Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the same. Both countries don't want to be aligned, or it's difficult for them to be politically aligned with Israel because so many Palestinians in Gaza are almost 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza now have been killed. So these Arab nations that have helped Israel over the weekend defend itself from Iran's attack. They don't want to have to do that every weekend. It can certainly cause them political turmoil and internal stress.

Because they don't want to be seen as like, cosigning what is happening in Gaza by helping Israel defend itself.

That that's the link that people would make, and they would want to bring down their leaderships if they thought that was the case. Hmhm.

You know it's an escalation ladder. And where is the threshold? The threshold is quite flexible.

'Amos Yadlin is a very well-informed person and he is a very experienced person. He was the fighter pilot that dropped the bomb in 1981 from his fighter jet on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, and he was as the head of the military intelligence agency in 2007. The person who put together the plan to target the Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 and destroy it successfully. So he has a good understanding of what can be on the table in terms of potential target, and he has a good understanding of the analysis that is made on whether or not you strike a target.

The damage that can be inflicted on Iran is huge, is huge. That's why they do it always indirectly.

And his assessment is that Israel crossed a red line, an Iranian red line, by targeting the IRGC commander and other IRGC figures in Damascus in that building, the Iranians say it was a diplomatic facility. He believes it was not a diplomatic facility, that it was somewhere that military were meeting. Nevertheless, Israel's calculation until now has always been that it struck targets that have been not going to cause a retribution from Iran, and this time they got the call wrong. Which means why did they get it wrong? Why is Iran's assessment changed? This is his belief. And his belief is that Iran's assessment has changed quite simply because the Iranians think Netanyahu, the prime minister, is weaker because his relationship with the United States and President Biden is weakened and it's weakened over Gaza. And they see this as an opportunity that they've never seen or taken before. We are in uncharted territory.

Because the US relationship with Israel is a little bit strained at this point. Iran says, hey, we can go after them without necessarily having to fear of getting a huge U.S. blowback on any of these specific actions that Israel might take.

And President Biden has affirmed that by saying that he's not going to help Israel strike back at Iran. So Iran has calculated correctly here. So therefore, Prime Minister Netanyahu has to calculate that the rules of the game have changed with Iran, and he's now got to predict what the new rules are. So when he strikes back, he has to be aware that he may cause a level of retribution on Israel that will cause significant civilian casualties. This is a new place for the Israeli prime minister to be. This is a much steeper and problem for him to navigate.

Really complicated moment. Thanks for boiling it down for us, Nick. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Tug of War is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Haley Thomas. Dan Dzula is our technical director and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Caroline Patterson, Maddie Araújo, and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Wednesday. I'll talk to you then.