12 No. 76 JUSTICE October 2023 – June 2025: One Long, Complex, Dynamic War The attacks of October 7-8, 2023, should be viewed as the beginning of an Iranian war of aggression against Israel that has continued to the present. As the war continued, it expanded beyond Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon to include attacks against Israel from other Iranian proxies in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Iran itself attacked Israel twice in 2024, launching hundreds of drones and a smaller number of missiles on April 13, 2024, and a much larger fusillade of ballistic missiles on October 1, 2024. Therefore, as of June 2025, Israel had been defending itself in a long, complex, and dynamic war against Iran and a variety of terrorist groups acting at Iran’s behest, all united in common cause against Israel. The war began, at the earliest with the Hamas invasion, and at the latest when Iran directly attacked Israel on April 13, 2024. In any event, the war has been ongoing ever since. Legal Consequences: Israel’s Right to Self Defense Iran initiated the war against Israel that began on October 7-8, 2023 by enabling and green lighting the invasion of Israel led by Hamas, in close cooperation with Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. Under ius in bello, Israel is entitled to use whatever force is necessary and proportionate to eliminate the military threat facing it.10 Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter obligates nations to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.” In Resolution 242, the UN Security Council called for the “[t]ermination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the [Middle East] area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” Iran violated Article 2(4) and Security Council Resolution 242 when it drove Hamas and Hezbollah to launch an unprovoked military attack against Israel on October 7-8, 2023. Article 51 of the Charter sets forth the self-defense exception to the rule against armed aggression, providing, “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.” Israel therefore acted fully within its rights in responding militarily to the attacks. Israel’s right to respond against Iran arose immediately on October 7-8, 2023, but Article 51 does not prescribe any time limit for acting in self-defense. Notwithstanding one commentator’s admonition that “[l]egitimate self-defence must be neither too soon nor too late,”11 as a practical matter, Israel could not have responded directly against Iran in October 2023 (or, for that matter, in April or October 2024), because the threat of a massive Hezbollah response against Israel still loomed. Although Israel had significantly degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities by October 2024, the Assad regime had yet to be overthrown in Syria, and Israel could not have taken the risk of a massive response of rocket and missile fire coming from just across its borders. Therefore, the better argument would be that Operation Rising Lion did not constitute a new war by Israel against Iran, but instead as Israel acting in self-defense against the war that Iran and its proxies had already started as early as October 2023, but no later than the first Iranian attack against Israel on April 13, 2024. Accordingly, Israel was under no time deadline to exercise its right to selfdefense against Iran. As one recent article noted: Several . . . commentators have based their contention that Israel’s attack is illegal on their opinion that Israel was not responding to an “imminent” nuclear attack by Iran. But this argument overlooks a critical legal principle: When two countries are already in a state of armed conflict—in colloquial terms a war—there is no requirement to wait for “the next attack” to be imminent. Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, including its ballistic missile capabilities, was legal because Iran and Israel were already engaged in an ongoing international armed conflict.12 10. The International Court of Justice has approved selfdefense measures “which are proportional to the armed attack and necessary to respond to it, a rule well established in customary international law." Supra note 5, at 94, ¶ 176. 11. George P. Fletcher, BASIC CONCEPTS OF CRIMINAL LAW 133-34 (Oxford University Press 1998). 12. Geoffrey Corn and Orde Kittrie, “Israel’s Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program is Fully Justified under
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