Israel has confirmed that it carries out covert operations far from its borders, usually to prevent its enemies from amassing weapons, though it generally refrains from commenting on attacks in the immediate aftermath.
The most overt and publicized long-range Israeli attack was the 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility. Below are some more recent military strikes:
September 2007: Israel bombs an alleged nuclear installation being set up with the help of North Korean scientists in a north-eastern Syrian desert area. After an initial silence of one month, Israel confirms it carried out "Operation Orchard."
February 2008: A Damascus car bomb kills Imad Mughniyeh, the military chief of Lebanon's radical Shiite Hezbollah movement.
January 2009: Israeli aircraft are the prime suspects in an attack on a suspected arms convoy in Sudan. Khartoum officials initially say 39 people are killed riding in 17 trucks, then raise the toll to 56 smugglers, as well as 63 people fleeing Ethiopia and Somalia. Israel says Sudan is a key axis on the Iran-Gaza smuggling route.
June 2010: The highly sophisticated Stuxnet computer worm, believed to have been created by the United States and Israel to target Iran's uranium enrichment infrastructure, is discovered.
January 2011: Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is found dead in a Dubai hotel room. In charge of smuggling weapons and funds to Gaza for the radical Islamist movement ruling the strip, he was allegedly murdered by Mossad agents.
September 2011: An explosion at a military base near Tehran kills 17 Iran Revolutionary Guards members, including logistic research unit chief, General Hassan Moqaddam. Israeli newspapers say he was the "father" of the Iranian Shahab rocket and that his death would deal a blow to Iran's missile programme.
May 2012: Flame, another highly sophisticated computer malware programme, is identified, and suspected to have been designed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Israeli military to cyber-sabotage Iran's nuclear efforts
May 2012: Sudan accuses Israel of planting a car bomb that killed arms smuggler Nasir Mohamed Said in the eastern Sudanese city of Port Sudan.
October 2012: Israel is again the main suspect when war planes bomb a military factory in southern Khartoum. The Sudan compound reportedly included an Iranian Revolutionary Guards facility. Several people are hospitalized for smoke inhalation.