At the funeral of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, one of the few non-family members to deliver a eulogy was the Hamas chairman Ismail Haniyeh—a reminder that the elite Quds Force, which Suleimani commanded for over two decades, invested much in coordinating terrorist attacks against Israel. And not only against Israel, writes Yehudit Barsky, but against Jews wherever they might be found:

The Quds Force was initially formed . . . to fulfil Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s declared goal of exporting the Iranian Revolution in order to “liberate Jerusalem” [“al-Quds.”] Among the Quds Force’s first recruits were Lebanese and Syrian followers of Khomeini’s ideology, who established Hizballah.

From their earliest days, organizations trained by the Quds Force have targeted Jews and Israelis. Hizballah initially targeted Lebanese Jews in the mid-1980s and went on to carry out suicide-bombing attacks against Israeli military installations and personnel in Lebanon. By the early 1990s, the Quds Force together with Hizballah trained leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in executing suicide bombings, thereby exporting such attacks to Israel.

Since his appointment as commander of the Quds Force in 1998, Suleimani extended the scope of attacks beyond the Middle East and Latin America to Jews and Israelis on a global scale, spanning the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Over the past decade, a series of foiled and attempted attacks were carried out by the Quds Force together with Hizballah targeting Israeli diplomats, including a 2011 plot to bomb the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC.

Failing in their attempts to target Israeli diplomats, the Quds Force and Hizballah turned their sights on Israeli tourists and Jewish communal institutions. In 2012, they carried out the bombing of a tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, killing five Israelis and the Bulgarian driver. During that same year, the Quds Force and Hizballah conducted surveillance in preparation for attacks on Israeli tourists in Cyprus and on a synagogue in Bulgaria. Another plan to attack Israeli interests in Nigeria was foiled in 2013. A year later, a Hizballah operative was arrested in Peru before he was able to carry out his mission to target the Israeli embassy, Israeli tourists, and Jewish communal institutions.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.