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Middle East in Flux: One Year After Hamas Attack
The Middle East is “quieter than it has been for decades”, wrote U.S. National Security Adviser (NSA) Jake Sullivan in a Foreign Affairs essay published in September 2023. Just weeks later, Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on Israel, an event that shattered Sullivan’s assessment and catalysed a dramatic shift in the region’s dynamics. What many believed to be a localised and contained conflict between Israel and Hamas, one year after, has metastasised into a broader regional crisis, drawing in actors like Iran, its proxies, and critical Gulf states.
A year of expanding fronts
The conflict that erupted on October 7, 2023, quickly spread beyond Gaza’s borders, igniting hostilities across multiple fronts. While Israel faces direct engagement with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the conflict has rippled through Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, destabilising the entire region. The initial stages of sporadic violence between Israel and Hamas—once seen as predictable—have evolved into a complex regional escalation. Hezbollah’s involvement, alongside Iranian-backed groups such as the Houthis in Yemen, has transformed the nature of the conflict.
The surge in hostilities, particularly after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in late September 2024, has pushed the region closer to a full-scale war. Once cautious in its direct engagement, Iran has increasingly stepped into the fray, encouraged by its alliances with regional militias. This evolution of the conflict underscores the fragility of the existing regional security architecture. It raises the spectre of a broader confrontation between Israel and Iran, with U.S. involvement increasingly on the table.
The U.S. has significantly increased its military presence in the region since the October 7 attack, particularly in terms of air and missile defence systems. These deployments serve both as deterrence against Iran and as potential targets for Iran-backed militias. Meanwhile, in the past year, attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen by Iran’s network of proxies have prompted limited U.S. retaliatory strikes. The U.S. has also targeted Houthi missile and drone capabilities in Yemen to degrade their ability to strike commercial shipping and Israel. Yet, the Houthis’ determination to attack these targets has all but erased hopes for a near-term resolution to the Yemen conflict.
Recent reports suggesting that Russia may begin arming the Houthis in response to U.S. and European support for Ukraine have further complicated assumptions about Russia’s limited role in the Middle East. Even before the October 7 attack, Iran had been supplying Moscow with military equipment in exchange for Russia’s support of the Assad regime in Syria. Confirmation that Russia is providing arms to Hezbollah, the Houthis, or Iran would certainly exacerbate tensions between the U.S. and Russia.
The unravelling of the Abraham Accords
One year after Hamas launched its deadly assault, which resulted in over 1,200 Israeli deaths and 250 hostages taken, many of the assumptions that shaped U.S. and global strategies have been upended. One of the most significant socio-political repercussions of the October 7 attack has been the unravelling of the Abraham Accords, the set of normalisation agreements U.S-backed signed between Israel and several Arab states in 2020. At the time of Sullivan’s article, U.S. and regional officials had come to believe that the Israeli-Palestinian issue no longer played a central role in the region’s geopolitical alignments. By 2020, several Arab countries—including the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan—had joined Egypt and Jordan in establishing normalised relations with Israel.
When Sullivan wrote his article, it appeared that Saudi Arabia was on the verge of doing the same. Leaders of countries involved in or considering joining the Abraham Accords made it clear that they no longer hinged their strategic decisions on the formation of a Palestinian state. However, they still advocated for an Israeli commitment to ending the occupation and supporting Palestinian statehood.
However, Hamas’ incursion into Israel directly challenged the central but unwritten thesis of the Abraham Accords—that Arab states could bypass the Israeli-Palestinian dispute to focus on their own economic and strategic interests. Also, the talks of a potential normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia have been indefinitely shelved as Riyadh, facing mounting domestic and regional pressures, aligns itself more closely with Arab solidarity over the Palestinian cause. This shift has forced Gulf states to reevaluate their diplomatic ties with Israel, as the war in Gaza reignites anti-Israel sentiments across the region.
Iran and its “Axis of Resistance”: Escalation and strategic realignment
The conflict has also reshaped the balance of power in the region, particularly concerning Iran’s influence. Tehran has seized the opportunity to consolidate its “axis of resistance”—the network of militias and non-state actors across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen aligned against Israel and U.S. interests. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has played a pivotal, historic role in extending Iran’s influence across these fronts, emboldening Hezbollah, Shia militias in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen to take more aggressive stances against Israel.
Iran’s willingness to risk confrontation with Israel, mainly through missile strikes and its proxy network, signals a new phase in the long-standing shadow war between the two nations. After the direct attacks against Israeli territories in April and October 2024, the once-upon-a-time “shadow war” became explicit. The escalation has heightened fears of a broader regional conflagration, particularly as U.S. forces bolster their presence in the region in response to attacks on Israeli and American assets. Yet, Washington’s primary goal remains to prevent a full-scale war, especially one that could draw in global powers and destabilise the Gulf further.
Fragmentation or realignment: The future of the Middle East
What is happening shows us that the security architecture has been dismantled. There has been a general loss of deterrence. In a region where red lines have governed the parameters of attacks and counterattacks, the overall rule system has collapsed, with no agreed timeline for enforcement and no enforcers to uphold them. Rights and necessities blur together in an escalation of actions and reprisals, seemingly headed for an inevitable collision course.
One year after the October 7 attack, the Middle East is more fractured and volatile than it has been in decades. Countries like Egypt and Jordan, once relatively stable, are grappling with internal pressures fueled by the socio-economic impact of the war and growing anti-Israel sentiment. The future of the Abraham Accords hangs in the balance as Gulf states reconsider their positions and weigh their economic partnerships against mounting regional tensions.
Saudi Arabia, for its part, has not abandoned the idea of normalising relations with Israel, although the conditions for such an agreement remain under negotiation. The Palestinian Authority continues to operate in the West Bank, and its security forces cooperate with Israel in countering Hamas and other militant factions. Fighting between the Houthis and the Yemeni government has not resumed, and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE remain paused. However, a year after the Hamas attack, optimism for the future of the Middle East is in short supply.
As the region continues to fragment, a new era of multilateralism may emerge, supplanting the old order once defined by U.S. unilateralism. With Iran’s expanded influence and the collapse of deterrence mechanisms, the Middle East may face a future of prolonged instability. As Jake Sullivan’s earlier prediction fades into memory, the question remains: will the region find a path to de-escalation and stability, or will it descend further into a protracted and fragmented conflict?
Despite the many challenges, there remains hope that diplomacy could de-escalate the situation. Both the U.S. and Iran have shown a willingness to avoid direct conflict, and U.S. officials continue to encourage Israel to limit its retaliatory strikes against Iranian targets while also pushing for ceasefires with Hezbollah and Hamas. Some analysts believe Israel’s military successes could eventually lead to diplomatic breakthroughs. Meanwhile, Arab Gulf states have continued to engage with Iran and, despite aiding in the defence against Iranian missiles, have not severed ties with Tehran.
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