Middle Eastern crisis (2023–present)
The Middle Eastern crisis is an ongoing series of interrelated wars, conflicts, and heightened instability in the Middle East during the Gaza war and genocide. The Gaza war began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals—including 815 civilians—and taking 251 hostages. Israel then launched an offensive with bombardment and a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. Israel's intensified blockade, bombardment, and invasion of the Gaza Strip has killed over 71,000 Palestinians, with some estimates suggesting more than 90,000 killed. On 10 October 2025, a ceasefire went into effect.
Shortly after the Gaza war began, several Iran-backed militias in the Axis of Resistance joined the conflict against Israel. In Lebanon, Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, igniting a fourteen-month conflict that escalated in October 2024 to an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon and largely ended with a ceasefire at the end of November. In the Red Sea, the Yemen-based Houthis attacked shipping vessels in solidarity with Hamas, drawing international rebuke—including a series of airstrikes against Houthi positions carried out by the United States and the United Kingdom—which ended with the U.S.–Houthi ceasefire in May 2025. Iraqi militias led by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq also carried out attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, but mostly halted in December 2024.
Three times during the crisis, Iran and Israel engaged in direct confrontations. The two exchanged attacks on each other's territory in April and October 2024, before an undeclared 12-day war occurred in June 2025. That conflict involved U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, prompting Iran to retaliate by targeting a U.S. base in Qatar. In November 2024, Syrian opposition groups began an offensive that reignited the Syrian civil war, culminating in the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December and the establishment of a transitional government in the place of the former Ba'athist government. On the same day, Israeli forces invaded the area around the Israel–Syria border.
The diplomatic and political impacts of the crisis have been wide-ranging. The scale of destruction in Gaza has led to the diplomatic isolation of Israel and the pause of normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Conversely, the crisis has been said to have severely decreased the regional strength and influence of Iran and its allies. There is consensus among scholars that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. In addition, South Africa has an ongoing case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—for alleged war crimes.
Events by theater
Israel and the Gaza Strip
On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian militant group Hamas led a surprise attack into Israel from the Gaza Strip that captured territory in southern Israel and killed approximately 1,200 people. 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 7 October 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 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. Israel began a bombing campaign of the southern city of Rafah in February, and Israel seized the Rafah border crossing on 7 May 2024 as it began an offensive in and around Rafah. Israeli forces pushed deeper into Rafah on 14 May. In July, Israel initiated a second battle in Khan Yunis. On 16 October 2024, the Israeli military killed the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, hence achieving a major goal of Israel's invasion of Gaza. On 15 January 2025, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire that would halt fighting in the Gaza Strip upon its ratification and lead to the release of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. It went into effect four days later, with Hamas retaining control over the Gaza Strip. On 18 March, Israel launched surprise airstrikes on Gaza as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Hamas had refused to release more hostages or accept a US proposal to extend the ceasefire.
The war has caused widespread destruction, a humanitarian crisis, and an ongoing famine in the Gaza Strip. Most of the population was forcibly displaced. More than 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed as of July 2025. On 10 October 2025, a ceasefire went into effect.
West Bank
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. Even before the war, there was escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the region. 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank on record, and in 2023 Israeli forces killed 234 Palestinians in the region even before the war began; Hamas said its 7 October attack was in part a response to rising violence against Palestinians. 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. Simultaneously, attacks by Israeli settlers more than doubled in the war's first month, part of an overall rise in settler violence that has displaced over 1,500 Palestinians during the war. On 28 August 2024, Israel began an expansive military operation in the West Bank consisting of raids, airstrikes, and the blocking of entry points in Jenin and Tulkarm, marking its largest offensive in the territory since the Second Intifada. On 21 January 2025, Israel launched its first major post-ceasefire raid, targeting Jenin, and announced that it intended to maintain a long-term military presence in the city, marking a shift in strategy.Additionally, there have been clashes between the Palestinian Authority and militant groups opposed to it in the West Bank. The PA has partial administrative authority in the region, and is dominated by Fatah, whose collaborations with the Israeli military for security have been criticized by militias including Hamas and PIJ. Clashes between militants and the PA escalated in July 2024, and in October the PA began a crackdown on militants in Tubas in response to Iranian efforts to undermine the PA in favor of local militias. In December, it began a second offensive in Jenin targeting the Jenin Brigades, an umbrella group of local militias.
Lebanon
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.On 2 January 2024, 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. On 27 July, 12 children in the Golan Heights were killed in an attack for which Israel accused Hezbollah; in response, Israel killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut on 30 July.
In September 2024, an Israeli operation resulted in the simultaneous explosion of thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah on 17 September and hundreds of walkie-talkies the next day, killing 42 people. The attacks marked the beginning of an intensive Israeli campaign against Hezbollah, and in the ensuing days Israel continued attacks in Lebanon and conducted a massive aerial bombardment that killed more than 700 people, including a 20 September attack that killed Hezbollah Redwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil. On 27 September 2024, Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, in an attack on the group's headquarters in Beirut.
On 1 October 2024, Israel began an invasion of southern Lebanon that it said was to eliminate the threat posed by Hezbollah and allow the 63,000 Israelis still displaced to return to their homes. By 15 October, over 25 percent of Lebanon was under Israeli evacuation orders, and during the invasion Israel captured and destroyed several villages and towns in southern Lebanon while it continued airstrikes across the country. During the conflict, more than 3,700 people in Lebanon were killed and about 1.3 million were displaced. On 27 November, Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a 60-day ceasefire intended to lead to a lasting end to the conflict. Despite both Israel and Hezbollah continuing to exchange attacks and accusing the other of violating the ceasefire, the agreement has largely held. In July 2025 a new report claimed that Hezbollah lost 10,000 of its fighters and many of its military capabilities have also deteriorated significantly. On 7 August 2025, in a government meeting specifically addressing the disarmament of Hezbollah, the majority of the government voted to approve the decision. The Lebanese Army was tasked to create a plan ensuring that only the state has control over weapons in Lebanon. The decision is based on a U.S. plan to disarm Hezbollah.