# Middle Eastern crisis (2023–present)

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The Middle Eastern crisis is a series of interrelated wars, conflicts, and heightened instability in the Middle East that began in 2023 after the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel. The 7 October attack came after a period of rising tensions and increased violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; the attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel and saw about 250 more taken hostage. Israel responded by declaring war and embarking on an intensive bombing campaign, and later invasion, of the Gaza Strip as a part of the war in Gaza that killed over 46,000 Palestinians before fighting was halted on 19 January 2025 after a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Israel launched surprise airstrikes across Gaza on 18 March.
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 on 27 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.
Two times during the crisis, Iran and Israel engaged in direct confrontations. The two exchanged attacks on each other's territory in both April and October 2024; both times, Israel's defense was aided by a multinational coalition. 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.
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. Some have accused Israel of genocide, including South Africa in an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice; the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for leaders of both Israel and Hamas for 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 an 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. The war began a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli invasion has displaced about 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.2 million pre-war residents and has killed at least 46,000. 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 Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that Israel has "returned to fighting in Gaza".

### 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 (PIJ). 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 (PA) 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.

### Yemen and the Red Sea

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. By May 2024, Houthis had conducted over 50 attacks; Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said his forces had launched 606 ballistic missiles and drones against 107 ships affiliated with Israel and its allies across the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb strait, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean. Houthis killed three sailors, seized one vessel, and sank another. 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 2023, 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 combatting attacks in the Red Sea. The coalition includes the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain. 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. On 3 January 2024, the U.S. and 12 other nations issued an ultimatum to the Houthis warning them to stop their attacks or face military action. On 12 January, the U.S. and U.K. began airstrikes in Houthi-controlled Yemen following a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned the Houthi attacks. The strikes were ordered by U.S. president Joe Biden and U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak authorized British participation. The two countries had launched 452 attacks on Houthi territory by May 2024, though the Houthis did not entirely cease their attacks.
After a Houthi drone attack in July 2024 killed one person and injured 10 others near the U.S. embassy office in Tel Aviv, Israel responded by attacking military facilities and oil depots in al-Hudaydah, Yemen, killing at least six and wounding at least 83. Israel attacked Yemen again in September, killing six and injuring 57 others. After Houthi attacks in December 2024, Israel launched two waves of strikes against Houthi territory in al-Hudaydah and Sanaa, killing a total of 13 people. Israeli attacks on the Houthis in Yemen continued into 2025. On 15 March, the US said that it started aerial and naval strikes on dozens of Houthi targets in Yemen after President Trump ordered an escalated military campaign against the Houthis. On 18 March, the Houthis pledged escalation as a response to March 2025 Israeli strikes on Gaza.

### Iraq and Jordan

Beginning on 17 October 2023, 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 U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza war. The attacks began with an IRI attack on the U.S.'s al-Asad Airbase in northern Iraq that the U.S. intercepted. Regional militias had conducted over 170 attacks against U.S. forces in the region by January 2024, aimed at pressuring the U.S. into withdrawing its troops in the region that it had deployed during the war against the Islamic State. On 28 January 2024, an IRI attack on a U.S. base in Jordan killed three American servicemembers; the U.S. responded on February 2 by attacking seven sites across Iraq and Syria. The IRI also conducted attacks against Israel beginning in October 2023, and in January 2024 it 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. Attacks on U.S. bases largely ended on 4 February 2024 at the request of Iran — though some resumed that April— and Iraqi militias agreed with the Iraqi government to stop attacking Israel in December 2024.
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.

### Syria
#### Initial Israeli attacks

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 and Aleppo. In January, Israel killed an Iranian general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force alongside 12 others. On 1 April, it bombed the consulate annex of Iran's embassy in Damascus, killing 16, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the Quds Force commander in Syria and Lebanon. In September, Israel raided and struck Masyaf, killing at least 18 people, and in October, Israeli strikes killed 13 people in Damascus and 10 in al-Quasyr. In November, Israeli killed 23 people in Syria in strikes targeting Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and killed 92 Iran-backed fighters from various groups later that month in Palmyra.

#### Opposition offensives and end of the Assad regime

On 27 November 2024, a coalition of Syrian opposition groups launched a surprise offensive against the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad in the country's northwest. The offensive came after key allies of the Assad government — Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah — were weakened by other conflicts. Led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and supported by Turkish-backed rebels, the offensive was the first since the 2020 ceasefire that largely halted major fighting in the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.
By 30 November, HTS had taken control of most of Aleppo, after which Russia intervened to conduct airstrikes on rebel positions there. By 1 December, the rebels had gained control of significant amounts of land in the governorates of Hama, Idlib, and Aleppo, and were beginning an offensive into the city of Hama. Hama fell to the HTS on 5 December, and on 7 December they had moved south to capture the city of Homs, effectively separating the government in Damascus from Syria's coast. Meanwhile, the Southern Operations Room began an assault on the government in Daraa and began pushing into the southern suburbs of Damascus, while the Syrian Free Army, which had captured Palmyra, approached Damascus from the east.
Damascus fell to the rebels in the early morning of 8 December, 11 days after the offensive began, and HTS proclaimed the end of the Assad regime as Assad fled the country for Moscow. HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa became the de facto leader of Syria and established a transitional government led by Mohammed al-Bashir as the country's caretaker prime minister until March 2025.
After the fall of the Assad regime, Netanyahu said that the 1974 Israel–Syria border agreement had "collapsed" and ordered the Israeli military to begin an invasion of the buffer zone in Syria along the Golan Heights. Israel seized Syria's side of Mount Hermon, occupied border villages in Syrian-controlled parts of the Golan Heights, and bombed targets across Damascus and southern Syria in addition to abandoned Syrian Arab Armed Forces (SAAF) weapons stockpiles and airbases. On 9 December, Israel carried out over 100 airstrikes across Syria, including a strike on the Port of Latakia. Israel justified its attacks, which destroyed much of the former SAAF's naval and air assets and its air defenses, as necessary to prevent extremists from capturing abandoned weapons; al-Sharaa condemned Israel's actions but said Syria would not enter a new conflict.

### Iran

On 13 April 2024, 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 and came after the 1 April Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed two Iranian generals among others, for which Iran had pledged retaliation. 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, and several Arab states including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates provided intelligence support. In response, on 19 April Israel launched a limited airstrike on Iran that targeted an air defense facility.
On 1 October 2024, in retaliation for several Israeli assassinations — the July killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and the 27 September Beirut strike that killed Hassan Nasrallah and Abbas Nilforoushan — Iran launched a second direct attack on Israel that consisted of roughly 200 ballistic missiles. The U.S., U.K., France, and Jordan again helped Israel repel most of the Iranian attack. Shrapnel from the attack killed one Palestinian civilian in the West Bank. Israel retaliated on 26 October, in the largest attack on Iran since the Iran–Iraq War, with over 100 Israeli aircraft targeting Iran's radar and air defense systems. Israel said the attack severely damaged Iran's air defense and missile production capabilities.

## Casualties

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 48,181 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war, with indirect deaths likely to be multiple times higher. More than 109,000 Palestinians have been injured in the war. The GHM does not distinguish between civilians and combatants; the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies says Israel has killed more than 17,000 militants, while Hamas said in April 2024 that it had lost no more than 20 percent, or about 6,000, of its fighters. An Associated Press analysis of GHM data up to April 2024 found that women and children comprised 54 percent of all identified dead, a statistic often used as a proxy for civilian casualties. Several governments and non-governmental organizations have accused Israel of targeting civilians and committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which Israel rejects.
In Israel, the 7 October Hamas-led attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, including 816 civilians and 379 members of the security forces. Of the 251 people from Israel taken back to Gaza as hostages, 136 have been returned to Israel alive, 39 have been returned dead, three were killed by friendly fire, and 73 remain in captivity. At least 405 Israeli soldiers and one officer were killed during the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Eighty Israeli soldiers and 46 civilians have been killed in the conflict with Hezbollah; violence in the West Bank has killed 25 Israelis, including six soldiers and police. The United Nations Human Rights Council said there was "clear evidence" of war crimes by both Israel and Hamas during the war, and human-rights organizations have accused Hamas and other militias of committing crimes against humanity in the 7 October attack.
In Lebanon, Israeli attacks killed 4,047 people and wounded 16,638 others. Hezbollah has confirmed the death of 521 of its members, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 67 Hezbollah members have been killed in Syria since the outbreak of the Gaza war. The Israeli military estimated that that around 3,800 Hezbollah members died in the conflict, while media reports claimed Hezbollah believes its number of dead could be as high as 4,000. Initial clashes in southern Lebanon also killed at least 20 members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. According to Lebanon's ministry of public health, fourteen journalists have been killed by Israeli attacks while reporting on the conflict.
In the West Bank, 607 Palestinians were killed by August 2024, primarily due to Israeli military raids. Additionally, the Palestinian Authority's offensive in Jenin resulted in the death of six PA soldiers, four Palestinian militants, and three civilians. During the Red Sea crisis, the Houthis have killed four sailors in the Red Sea, while in December 2023 U.S. strikes on Houthi boats in the Red Sea killed at least 10 Houthi members, and by the end of May 2024 the U.S. and U.K. airstrikes in Houthi-controlled Yemen had killed 56 people and injured 77 others. Five U.S. soldiers died in January 2024: two were lost at sea on a mission to seize Iranian weapons and three were killed in an IRI attack in Jordan that injured 47 others.

## Political and legal impact

Prior to the outbreak of war, the United States had aimed to expand the 2020 Abraham Accords into a diplomatic normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia that would likely include a defense agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. had scheduled a negotiation between Netanyahu and a Saudi ambassador to take place in Tel Aviv in November 2023. However, the Hamas attack on 7 October and ensuing Israeli invasion of Gaza meant that the meeting could not take place. Later in 2024, Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman said that any Saudi–Israeli normalization agreement would require Palestinian statehood as part of a two-state solution.

### United Nations

On 29 December 2023, South Africa brought a case against Israel before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war, in violation of the Genocide Convention. South Africa requested that the ICJ order an immediate halt to Israel's military operations in Gaza among other provisional measures of protection. Israel has contended that its actions in Gaza are targeted only at Hamas and are in legitimate self-defense in accordance with international law. On 26 January 2024, the ICJ said in a preliminary ruling that South Africa's allegations are "plausible" and that Israel must "take all measures within its power" to prevent genocide in Gaza.
Prior to the January 2025 ceasefire that halted the Gaza war, the United Nations Security Council made numerous attempts to negotiate a ceasefire. The United States vetoed a February 2024 resolution demanding a ceasefire for not including a condemnation of the 7 October attack, and on 22 March Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-drafted resolution calling for an immediate six-week ceasefire conditional on the release of hostages. On 25 March, the UNSC passed Resolution 2728, which called for a ceasefire during the month of Ramadan, the "immediate and unconditional" release of all hostages, and the allowance of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The U.S. vetoed a later ceasefire resolution in November 2024, saying this was due to the fact that the resolution did not require the immediate release of all hostages.