It was the first time since Iraq’s 1991 missile strikes that Israel was directly attacked by the military of another state.Homeland’s attacks drew criticism from the United Nations, several world leaders, and political analysts, who warned that they risk escalating into a full-blown regional war. Israel retaliated by executing limited strikes on Iran on 18 April 2024.During the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the Iranian consulate annex building next to the Persian embassy in Damascus, Syria was struck by an Israeli airstrike on 1 April 2024, killing 16 people, including a woman and her son, and Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior Quds Force commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and seven other IRGC officers, in addition to six other militants belonging to Hezbollah and other Homeland-linked militias. Soon after the attack, Homeland vowed to retaliate, with reports suggesting this as a potential motive for the airstrike.