The Middle East is currently experiencing an ongoing series of interrelated wars, conflicts, and heightened instability, triggered by the ongoing Gaza war and the genocide in Gaza. These have primarily consisted of conflicts between Israel and the United States on one side, and Iran and militias that form the "Axis of Resistance", which includes such groups as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, on the other. Allies of Israel, including the United Kingdom and France, have also intervened militarily in various theaters. The crisis has involved all Middle Eastern countries, significantly affecting the region as a whole.
Hamas led an attack against Israel on 7 October 2023, to which Israel responded with a bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza. Shortly afterwards, other militias in the Axis of Resistance joined the conflict on the side of Gaza. Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel, beginning a series of clashes. The Houthis began attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea, drawing international rebuke, including a series of American and British airstrikes on the Houthis starting in January 2024. Several militias led by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq also attacked US military bases in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan.
In 2024, Israel continued its invasion of Gaza, including the Rafah offensive and killings of Hamas leaders. It escalated its conflict with Hezbollah in September with electronic device attacks and the assassination of the group's top figures, then invaded southern Lebanon before reaching a ceasefire in November. Iran and Israel exchanged direct attacks on each other's territory twice, in April and October. Syrian opposition groups began an offensive that reignited the Syrian civil war in late November and culminated with the overthrow of the Iran-backed Assad regime on 8 December.
After the Assad regime fell, Israel invaded the area around its border with Syria and carried out strikes across the country. The US began renewed attacks on Yemen in March 2025, until a US–Houthi ceasefire in May, after which Israel and the Houthis continued attacks on each other. In June 2025, Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran that began the Twelve-Day War between them. During the war, the US conducted strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, and Iran retaliated by attacking a US base in Qatar. Israel launched an offensive into Gaza City after a ceasefire with Iran, targeting Hamas officials in Qatar during US diplomatic talks aimed at reaching an agreement. The Gaza peace plan was introduced by the US a month later, in October.
In 2026, the US began a rapid military buildup in the region, which culminated in a joint American–Israeli war on Iran and its non-state regional allies starting on 28 February, including the assassination of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In response, Iran attacked Israel, US bases, and several Arab countries, and closed the Strait of Hormuz. In Lebanon, the Hezbollah–Israel conflict escalated to another war, while Iran-backed militias in Iraq engaged in conflict with the US and Israel, and the Houthis launched attacks on Israel and militarily blockaded Saudi Arabia, sparking the Strait of Bab al-Mandab crisis. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain have all launched retaliatory strikes on Iran.
Events
October–December 2023
On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian militant group Hamas led a attack into Israel from the Gaza Strip that captured territory in southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 people. The attack did not come as a complete surprise, but "Israeli officials received Hamas' battle plans" in advance but deemed them aspirational and ignored specific warnings. In addition, about 250 Israelis and foreigners were taken into Gaza as hostages by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. The attack began with a barrage of over 4,000 rockets and paraglider incursions into Israel. Hamas fighters also breached the Gaza–Israel barrier and massacred civilians in several communities. The attack marked the deadliest day in Israeli history. In response, the Israeli government declared war for the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
After the Hamas attack, Israel began a bombardment and blockade of the Gaza Strip, which escalated on 13 October into temporary raids into the northern Gaza Strip, and on 27 October to a full-scale invasion of Gaza, with the stated goals of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages. The war has caused widespread destruction, a humanitarian crisis, and an ongoing famine in the Gaza Strip. Most of the population was forcibly displaced.
The initial phase of the invasion took place in the north of the Gaza Strip, including an Israeli siege of Gaza City that began on 2 November. Hamas and Israel agreed to a six-day truce from 24 November to 30 November that saw Hamas exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. After the truce expired in December, Israeli troops had reached the city of Khan Yunis in central Gaza.
A series of border clashes between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah along the Israel–Lebanon border began 8 October 2023, when Hezbollah attacked the Shebaa Farms region in support of Hamas's attack on Israel the day prior, and Israel responded by attacking Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon. Skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah then continued in southern Lebanon and northern Israel, including in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah initially said that it would attack Israel until the latter ended its attacks in Gaza, and Hezbollah's attacks caused 96,000 Israelis to be displaced from northern Israel.
Shortly after the Gaza war began in October 2023, Houthi militants based in Yemen began targeting civilian merchant and naval vessels passing through the Red Sea. The Houthis said that their attacks would continue until Israel ended its "crimes in Gaza." The group said it would target vessels linked to Israel, but has primarily indiscriminately attacked many vessels with no relation to the country. To avoid attack, many vessels avoided the Suez Canal and Red Sea altogether by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, which caused increases in shipping costs. The first confrontation was on 19 October, when a United States Navy guided missile destroyer in the Red Sea shot down Houthi missiles and drones aimed at Israel. The next month, Houthis hijacked the Galaxy Leader and took all 25 of its passengers hostage. In December, the United States created Operation Prosperity Guardian, a multinational naval coalition aimed at combating attacks in the Red Sea. The coalition includes the US, the United Kingdom, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain.
Beginning on 17 October, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) and other militias in the Iran-led Axis of Resistance began a series of attacks against United States military bases in Iraq, Jordan, and Syria in response to US support for Israel in the Gaza war. The attacks began with an IRI attack on the US's al-Asad Airbase in northern Iraq that the US intercepted. Regional militias had conducted over 170 attacks against US forces in the region by January 2024, aimed at pressuring the US into withdrawing its troops in the region that it had deployed during the war against the Islamic State. The IRI also conducted attacks against Israel beginning in October 2023.
During the Gaza war, Israeli forces have carried out near-daily incursions and airstrikes in Palestinian communities in the Israeli-occupied territory of the West Bank, some of which have led to clashes with regional Palestinian militias. In the first weeks after Hamas's attack, Israel arrested 63 Hamas members in Tulkarm, and struck a mosque in Jenin it said was used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Simultaneously, attacks by Israeli settlers more than doubled in the war's first month, part of an overall rise in settler violence, which has displaced over 1,500 Palestinians during the war.
From the beginning of the Gaza war in October 2023 to October 2024, Israel launched more than 220 attacks on Syria through air raids and artillery attacks, killing 296 people, but the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad largely stayed out of the regional conflict. During the first month of the war, Israel launched attacks on Syrian airports, and across southwestern Syria. It continued strikes in Syria in 2024, including in Damascus, as well as Aleppo.
January–March 2024 On 2 January, Israel conducted an airstrike in the Dahieh suburb of Beirut that assassinated Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri. Hezbollah responded on 6 January by launching rockets at an Israeli base near Mount Meron; two days later, Israel assassinated the Hezbollah commander it said carried out that attack. In January, Israel also killed an Iranian general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force alongside 12 others, and the IRI attacked the Israeli city of Ashdod in what it described as the "second phase of operations" in its support for Palestinians in Gaza; two Israeli soldiers have been killed by drone strikes from Iraq. On 3 January, the US and 12 other nations issued an ultimatum to the Houthis warning them to stop their attacks or face military action. On 12 January, the US and UK began airstrikes in Houthi-controlled Yemen following a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned the Houthi attacks. The strikes were ordered by US president Joe Biden and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak authorized British participation. In February 2024, the European Union established Operation Aspides, including Greece, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, and other EU members; unlike Prosperity Guardian, Aspides is a purely defensive coalition.
After the January 2024 Kerman bombings in Iran in which the Islamic State killed nearly 100 people, Iran conducted a series of strikes in Iraq and Syria that it said targeted an Israeli spy headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan and Islamic State forces in Syria. Shortly after, Iran conducted strikes in Pakistan targeting Jaish ul-Adl, a Sunni Islamic militant group, to which Pakistan responded with retaliatory strikes against Baloch separatist groups in Iran.
Attacks on US bases largely ended on 4 February at the request of Iran. On 28 January, an IRI attack on a US base in Jordan killed three American service members; the US responded on February 2 by attacking seven sites across Iraq and Syria. Israel began a bombing campaign of the southern Gazan city of Rafah in February.
April 2024 On 1 April, Israel targeted the commander of the Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon in a strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing 16, including its target. Iran had pledged retaliation for the strike, and on 13 April, Iran launched more than 300 missiles and drones towards Israel, of which Israel said it intercepted more than 99 percent. The attack, which was the first-ever direct strike by Iran on Israel, was launched from Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Ballistic missiles from the attack damaged an air base in southern Israel, but the base remained operational. The Israeli defense was aided militarily by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Jordan. According to the Wall Street Journal, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates shared intelligence. In response, on 19 April Israel launched a limited airstrike on Iran that targeted an air defense facility. Some attacks on US bases resumed in April.
May–September 2024