When the Middle East woke up on Monday morning to reports of renewed strikes between Israel and Iran, it was a dispiriting reminder that the region has been in the grip of a dangerous and unpredictable conflict for 100 days.
The past three months since the US and Israel began bombing Iran – and Tehran’s unprovoked military strikes against its neighbours – has been a long and trying time. Global diplomatic and mediation efforts have yet to bring the conflict to an end. Even in countries with effective defences, such as the UAE, education, employment and travel were affected at the height of the war. However, for the millions of civilians in other parts of the Middle East who have been displaced since February 28, the past 100 days will have felt much longer.
According to the UNHCR, up to 3.2 million Iranians have been internally displaced by the conflict. In Lebanon, a much smaller country, Israeli bombardment and occupation have displaced at least 1.2 million civilians and erased entire neighbourhoods.
The longer this war continues, the more likely that emergency measures to provide food, shelter and medical treatment to uprooted families will curdle into dependency. The Lebanese authorities’ ability to help is limited, given the country’s chronic economic and political problems.
In Iran, the government’s fixation on militarism and destabilising its neighbours is making a bad situation for its people even worse. In April, it was reported that the war was pushing the country’s already fragile economy to breaking point, with two million jobs lost since February and the International Monetary Fund projecting a 6.1 per cent contraction this year.
Countries around the world are affected by energy disruption and inflation. As is often the case, those with the lowest incomes, are the most affected, with hundreds of jobs lost and thousands of seafarers either stranded or losing their jobs.
As bad as this human suffering is, allowing the war to drag on promises to make things worse. Attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have led to serious disruption of energy supplies and global supply chains. Such turmoil carries the real risk of exacerbating civilian hardships through higher prices for food and fuel prices, as well as the possibility of actual scarcity down the line.
Every day the war continues only compounds the challenges of reconnecting the regional and global economy later. At the end of March, the UN Development Programme said gross domestic product losses in the Middle East from the war so far had exceeded the cumulative regional GDP growth achieved in 2025. An estimated rise in unemployment of up to 4 percentage points equalled 3.6 million jobs lost – more than the total number of jobs created in the Middle East last year.
As interceptions and explosions are heard in Israel and Iran, and millions of displaced people brace for further hardship and uncertainty, the war’s enervating cycle of escalation, diplomacy, de-escalation, threats and renewed fighting must end. If a durable peace is not found, the region's next hundred days are sure to be even more challenging.
