Two years since 7 October: Israel’s forever wars across the Middle East

Two years after the 7 October 2023 attacks, the Middle East looks very different. Israel’s war with Hamas has spilled beyond Gaza, drawing in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. The scale of devastation can be compared to the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the wars that followed, with similar destabilizing effects that have caused a reshaping of the region.

The 7 October attacks and Israel’s initial response

On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched a land, air, and sea assault on Israel. Beginning around 6 a.m., rockets hit cities including Tel Aviv and Ashkelon. Militants then overran southern towns, killing and abducting civilians and clashing with Israeli forces. 

A prolonged war

Two years later, Hamas has been weakened, and the group is no longer capable of launching large-scale attacks against Israel. However, it has not been fully eliminated and continues to conduct guerrilla warfare against Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. 

The toll on civilians has been significant. On 16 September, an independent United Nations commission issued a report finding that Israel’s leaders and security forces have committed genocide in Gaza, a conclusion leading Israeli human rights organizations also reached in July.

In addition to the thousands of Palestinians who have been killed, the majority of the population has been displaced and crammed into small zones, and the weaponization of aid — along with chaos and violence around distribution sites — has created a dire humanitarian situation. 

Israeli political elites continue to press ahead with military action in pursuit of “total victory.” The newly launched Gaza City ground offensive has already displaced 800,000 Palestinians and, as Israel’s military chief has warned, put the lives of the remaining Israeli hostages in danger. 

The fronts expand beyond Gaza

The IDF’s involvement in the region has not been limited to Gaza. Israel has pivoted to a wider regional conflict by expanding its military actions against historical foes, framing them as complicit with Hamas’ actions.

The West Bank

In the wake of 7 October, violence in the West Bank increased to levels not seen since the Second Intifada. Settlers, emboldened by far-right elements of the Israeli government, escalated their attacks on Palestinians. The IDF, meanwhile, intensified its crackdown on West Bank armed groups.

Intensified Israeli raids and crackdowns fueled a surge in militant activity, much of it carried out in direct response to IDF operations and often unfolding during the raids themselves. Between 7 October 2023 and 26 September 2025, ACLED records over 80% more violent militant events than during the same time period prior.

Israel's crackdown on local armed groups has significantly weakened them. In the past seven months, ACLED records a 78% decrease in political violence events involving Palestinian armed groups compared to the preceding seven months. But by early October, there are indicators that some of the local militant groups may be regrouping, while single shooting and stabbing attacks, including by Hamas operatives, have also continued.

Given Israel's steady expansion of the settlement project, increasing settler violence, worsening economic conditions, and no political solution on the horizon, the risk of further escalation remains high.

Taken together, developments in Gaza and the West Bank point to an Israeli strategy aimed at extinguishing the prospect of a Palestinian state altogether, with violence certain to continue. 

Outside Palestine, Israel launched strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen as part of its regional response, both of which had fired in solidarity with Gaza. Israel soon escalated these fronts into parallel wars. 

Lebanon

Hezbollah initially targeted Israeli military outposts in Shebaa Farms and the Golan Heights, and later northern Israel. For nearly a year after the Hamas attacks, fighting between Israel and Hezbollah followed a low-intensity, tit-for-tat pattern, as Hezbollah positioned itself as part of the wider front against Israel. 

Israel’s military setbacks to Hezbollah have exposed the group’s vulnerabilities, emboldening its opponents. The fate of Hezbollah’s military wing — and Lebanon’s political future — now rests on whether this moment of vulnerability leads to disarmament through negotiation or instead descends into stalemate and renewed conflict, both internally and with Israel. 

The Red Sea and Yemen

Declaring solidarity with Gaza, Houthi forces in Yemen began launching missiles and drones toward Israel in the weeks after 7 October. Most were intercepted, but the attacks pushed Israel into a new front. 

On 28 August, during Operation Lucky Drop, Israel targeted a high-level Houthi meeting in Sanaa, killing Ahmed al-Rahawi, the Houthi prime minister, along with several other senior officials in the Houthi government. A few weeks later, on 10 September, Israeli strikes targeted Sanaa again, hitting the Houthis’ media complex and nearby fuel depots and killing at least 46 civilians, including 31 journalists.

Israel has used this crisis to expand its presence in the Red Sea, delving further south and conducting unprecedented naval strikes such as the 10 June 2025 attack on the al-Hudaydah port. Yet the Houthis remain undeterred by multiple waves of US and Israeli airstrikes and continue their attacks on both commercial shipping and Israel. 

Syria

In the year after 7 October, Israeli strikes also focused on Hezbollah and Iranian positions in Syria. But after the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024, Israel pivoted its campaign.

More than a third of the 330 Israeli strikes in Syria in 2024 took place following the regime’s collapse. 

Since then, Israel has entrenched itself in southern Syria. Its involvement has gone beyond airstrikes: Israeli forces occupied the entire 235 km² UN buffer zone in Quneitra and expanded into southern Daraa and western Rural Damascus (see map below). From there, Israel has carried out more than 200 incursions and extended deep aerial influence across Syria through surveillance and strikes. Israel’s presence secures high ground overlooking Lebanon, access to water resources, and direct leverage over local communities. 

Israel has also positioned itself as a “protector” of Druze communities in Suwayda and Quneitra — a framing it has used in both domestic and regional messaging. In practice, Israel’s activities in these provinces have given it a defining and destabilizing hand in Syria’s fragile post-Assad transition. 

Assad’s fall in December 2024 crushed decades of regional order, and Israeli influence continues to shape Syria’s evolving conflict landscape. 

Iran

For years, Iran and Israel fought a covert shadow war while avoiding open confrontation. Although Iran long backed Hamas financially and rhetorically, it did not play a direct role in the 7 October attack and sought to avoid being dragged into an open war with Israel. But Israel continued to climb up the escalation ladder by striking Iranian commanders in Syria and Lebanon and assassinating Hamas’ political leader in Tehran.

In 2024, Iran launched largely symbolic and heavily telegraphed missile salvos into Israel twice. They caused little damage and were aimed mainly at restoring deterrence. 

Finally, with Hezbollah weakened, Assad’s government gone, and US President Donald Trump back in office, Israel launched a full-scale campaign in June 2025, hitting nuclear and military sites inside Iran and killing senior military figures and nuclear scientists. 

Despite interception rates of 80–90%, the 12-day war highlighted Iran’s arsenal as the most lethal threat that Israel had faced since 7 October.

Israel depleted much of Iran’s missile arsenal during the brief war and, with US backing, inflicted significant damage on its nuclear program. Yet Iran retains significant missile stockpiles, its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium, and nuclear know-how. Diplomacy and domestic shifts — from succession to the aging supreme leader to changes in regional policy — could reduce risks, but the prospect of Israel launching a renewed and more forceful war remains high.

Between domestic turmoil and a new Middle East

At home, demonstrations that are critical of the government have increased. 

Their demands have ranged from early elections and the dismissal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the return of hostages and calls for an end to the war, reflecting widespread opposition to the current leadership and a frustration with a conflict that seems unending. While most of these demonstrations have been peaceful, 14% of them turned violent or were met with police intervention, particularly in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. 

Hamas’ 7 October assault set in motion a profound reshaping of the regional order. In its aftermath, Israel shifted to a proactive offense, seeking to cement long-term military and strategic dominance. 

Backed by the US, Israel has pursued this course with few restraints, facing little consequence even after targeting Hamas leaders inside Qatar, a key American ally, on 9 September 2025.

Israel’s decisive military gains on several fronts have reshaped the balance of power in the Middle East, tilting it heavily in Israel’s favor. Yet whether these battlefield successes will translate into lasting strategic outcomes remains uncertain. Renewed rounds of conflict may still lie ahead, but political and diplomatic processes — along with domestic developments across the region — could also shape the trajectory.

Israel’s international legitimacy is eroding, criticism is intensifying, more states are recognizing Palestine, and global protests calling for an end to the war continue. These pressures have not so far deterred Israel’s leadership, but the belief that military power alone can secure lasting security by transforming the Middle East may prove a miscalculation.

Videos and photos sourced from Getty Images & Adobe Stock.