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Israel’s recent strikes on Iran’s military infrastructure signal the vulnerability of Tehran’s air defences and expose the limitations of its regional deterrence strategy.

Israel’s war aims are overambitious. Without narrowing its goals in Gaza and Lebanon, it risks military overstretch and political fallout, weakening its strategic position.

Iran will be hoping that it has reinforced its credibility in the Middle East with its attack on Israel, but it is more likely to prompt a damaging Israeli response.

This article presents five governance models for managing contested sacred sites, offering tools to help resolve conflicts while balancing religious freedom and social order.

Israel’s pager and walkie-talkie attacks on Hezbollah, which have been followed by an ongoing air campaign, signal a new phase in the conflict amid heightened regional tensions.

As tensions continue to rise in the Middle East, we launch a new Global Security Brief mini-series dedicated to understanding the dynamics shaping the region.

The mass explosion of pagers belonging to Hezbollah fighters and supporters across Lebanon – widely attributed to Israel – constitutes a major security breach for the militant group.

Concluding our series on how the UK’s new Labour government is approaching key foreign policy questions, we turn to the Middle East.

This paper seeks to identify lessons relevant to the British Army, based on analysis of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations in autumn 2023.

While AI has the potential to refine and improve military targeting, the evidence suggests that the Israeli military’s use of AI tools during the Gaza conflict has been more about speed than accuracy.

Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords in 1978, the first peace treaty between the Jewish state and any of its Arab neighbours. The accords are the bedrock of the region’s security architecture, but owing to Israel’s war on Gaza and its moves at the border between Gaza and Egypt, the relationship between Cairo and Tel Aviv has reached its lowest point in decades. In US President Joe Biden’s recent speech on the crisis, he mentioned a clear role for Cairo in not only negotiations, but the ‘day after’. What kind of state are Egyptian-Israeli relations in, and how might this impact the future? Jonathan Eyal (JE) asked RUSI Senior Associate Fellow H A Hellyer (HH) about the significance of these events.

On 20 May, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant, and for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar (head of Hamas in Gaza), Mohammed Deif (commander of Hamas’s military wing) and Ismail Haniyeh (head of Hamas’s political bureau, based in Qatar). In this explainer, RUSI Senior Associate Fellow Julie Norman breaks down the legal and political implications.

Iran's failed attack on Israel highlights the danger of miscalculation and escalation in the Middle East. With the risk of further conflict and the looming threat of a nuclear Iran, the region faces a dangerous crossroads.

The UK recently joined several other countries in withdrawing funding from a UN aid agency in response to Israeli allegations of crimes linked to Hamas. This paper considers the intent behind defunding as an approach, its potential security impacts and options for responses to similar cases in future.