Nearly six months after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, tensions in two key flashpoints Lebanon and Syria continue to rise with significant Israeli airstrikes in both countries, leading to the highest death tolls in each country since October 7. Amid these rising tensions, ongoing clashes between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) threaten to escalate into a wider war. At the same time, Lebanon continues to reel from a series of crises that have unfolded over the past four and a half years, highlighting Lebanon’s perilous position as the Gaza conflict continues to reverberate throughout the region.
Three U.S. troops were killed and at least 34 injured in a drone strike on a U.S. base in northeast Jordan on January 28. The attack comes against a backdrop of rising regional tensions since the outbreak of conflict in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
Twelve years into Syria’s devastating civil war, the conflict appears to have settled into a frozen state. Although roughly 30% of the country is controlled by opposition forces, heavy fighting has largely ceased and there is a growing regional trending toward normalizing relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Over the last decade, the conflict erupted into one of the most complicated in the world, with a dizzying array of international and regional powers, opposition groups, proxies, local militias and extremist groups all playing a role.
A powerful earthquake, registering 7.8 on the Richter scale, struck Türkiye and Syria early Monday morning, with a 7.5 magnitude tremor and other aftershocks felt by countries around the region. Initial figures suggest that in Türkiye as many as 2,921 were killed and 13,293 injured, with 5,600 buildings collapsed. All told, the death toll in Türkiye and Syria stands at 4,300 but is likely to continue to rise. The epicenter of the quake was Türkiye’s southern city of Gaziantep, home to nearly half a million Syrian refugees forced from their homeland amid Syria’s devastating civil war. While the international community mobilized quickly to pledge assistance, aid delivery to Syria already dealing with massive humanitarian challenges in both rebel- and regime-held areas will be particularly complicated given the country’s ongoing conflict.
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