Category World News

At exactly 12pm (10:00 GMT), the piercing wail of air raid sirens shatters the midday hum of Tel Aviv.

Across the city, tech workers abandon their desks and rush into reinforced concrete stairwells, scrolling anxiously through phones as the dull thuds of aerial interceptions echo overhead. This midday disruption is not a random anomaly; it is a meticulously scheduled routine in a suffocating new reality for millions of Israelis.

While the United States and Israel promote their war on Iran, which assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as a “strategic victory,” the operational reality on the ground reveals a crippling war of attrition.

Ehab Jabareen, a researcher specialising in Israeli affairs, describes this disconnect as the “security achievement gap”.

“Israel can achieve massive intelligence breakthroughs, like assassinating a figure the size of the Iranian supreme leader, but it is simultaneously unable to translate this achievement into a daily sense of security,” Jabareen said.

He noted that the old Israeli security doctrine – which assumed the adversary’s body would collapse if the head was severed – has failed. Instead, assassinations merely trigger new rounds of retaliation, offering a “psychological victory without any strategic stability”.

The data of attrition, from shock to ‘programmed paralysis’

The scale of this attrition is captured in data from Tzofar, a voluntary alert tracking system that draws real-time information from the Israeli military’s Home Front Command servers. An analysis of Tzofar’s data between February 28 and March 8 documents thousands of security incidents, detailing a profound military shift.

• The initial shock: On February 28, as United States and Israeli jets struck Tehran, Israel faced an unprecedented retaliatory barrage. Tzofar data indicates an overwhelming initial spike, with alerts peaking dramatically on the first day to overwhelm layered air defences.
• The attrition phase: By early March, the strategy shifted. Daily alerts stabilised into a steady rhythm of attrition that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claims it is prepared to sustain for at least six months.

A critical tactical turning point occurred on March 3. Tzofar’s breakdown by threat type shows that infiltrations by “hostile aircraft” – primarily “suicide” drones – surpassed traditional rocket alerts for the first time. This coincided with Lebanon’s Hezbollah entering the fray to target northern Israel.

Unlike ballistic missiles with predictable trajectories, these slow, highly manoeuvrable drones can hover over populated areas, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis into shelters as a single drone triggers alarms across vast geographic areas.

Jabareen argues that the Iron Dome was historically more than just a defence array; it was a central pillar in the psychological contract between the state and society, creating an invisible shield that allowed Israelis to live and work normally despite regional wars.

Cheap, low-flying drones have radically altered this equation. “They do not need high precision or massive destructive power; their main job is to disrupt the economic rhythm of life,” Jabareen explained.

Targeting the economic heart

While border towns naturally record high total alerts, a closer look at the data reveals a targeted campaign against Israel’s economic centre.

Cities deep within the central Gush Dan and Shfela regions – such as Petah Tikva, Givat Shmuel, Kiryat Ono and East Ramat Gan – recorded nearly identical figures of about 70 to 75 alerts each in the system’s tracking. This symmetry indicates coordinated, dense barrages aimed directly at the greater Tel Aviv area, effectively undermining the country’s financial and demographic heart.

The timing of these strikes exposes a strategy focused on psychological and economic disruption. The Tzofar data reveals that attacks are not random; they peak sharply at exactly 12pm local time, with other waves at 7am, 2pm and 3pm. By targeting morning commutes and peak afternoon business hours, while leaving the early morning hours relatively quiet, the strikes are engineered to maximise economic paralysis.

This dynamic is giving rise to what is being debated in Israel as a “siren economy” – an environment where markets and businesses are forced to operate in fragmented bursts between air raid alerts. For a country that proudly brands itself as the “Startup Nation”, the inability to maintain a fast-paced, stable work environment poses an unprecedented dilemma.

A fractured social contract

This paralysis has severed Israel in some respects from the outside world. The unprecedented six-day closure of Israeli airspace has also stranded more than 100,000 citizens abroad.

For a small state without determined land borders, Ben Gurion International Airport is the solitary lung connecting Israel to the global economy – vital for high-tech exports, tourism and foreign investment.

“This touches the Israeli social contract – the unwritten agreement between the citizen and the state based on a clear equation: military service and high taxes in exchange for security and economic stability,” Jabareen noted. As this equation wavers, it shifts the internal debate from security concerns to a deeper political question regarding the government’s exit strategy.

The human cost continues to mount. Sixteen Israelis have been killed since the escalation began, including nine in Beit Shemesh, five in the greater Tel Aviv area, and two soldiers on the Lebanese border. The Israeli Ministry of Health reported that the number of injured has risen to 2,142, with 142 hospitalised.

According to Jabareen, the Israeli security establishment does not view the current conflict as leading to an imminent Iranian collapse, but rather as a phase of prolonged, mutual attrition, potentially aiming to “Lebanonise” Iran by dismantling its central state.

However, as the Israeli public is forced to accept disrupted air travel and daily rushes to bomb shelters, the fundamental question shifts from military capability to societal endurance. Pointing to fatigue that eventually forced Israel out of southern Lebanon after 15 years, Jabareen questions whether the “Startup Nation” can survive a similar era of “lean years” against a much larger foe.

Al Jazeera’s @thereelrubyz has been to the first women-only mosque in the Middle East, in the Qatari capital Doha, to explore what the space means to women, especially during the holy month of Ramadan. Since filming, many activities have been limited because of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Kyiv, Ukraine – The Russia-Ukraine war’s harshest winter has brought ceaseless pressure from Moscow along the front line and significant aerial attacks that have left millions of Ukrainians without power and heat.

Even though Russia keeps pushing towards Ukrainian strongholds in the southeastern region of Donetsk and plans a spring-summer offensive, for the first time in almost three years, Kyiv began regaining some territory.

The gains amounted to 460sq km (117.6sq miles), or about 10 percent of what Kyiv lost to Moscow in 2025, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Moscow’s inability to replenish its front-line losses is the main factor, he said.

“Russia is losing a lot of people, up to 35,000 a month,” he told Corriere Della Sera, an Italian daily, on March 3.

Because of the losses inflicted by Ukraine, Russia’s army “stopped growing. Losses equal the number of newly mobilised soldiers. They are close to a crisis,” he was quoted as saying.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank, said the gains were more modest – 257sq km (100sq miles) – but admitted that the porous front line and multiple grey areas complicate a better calculation.

Almost all of Dnipropetrovsk liberated, Ukraine says

Ukrainian counterattacks were especially successful in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, where the presence of Russian troops had been insignificant and is now reduced to only three towns.

“Almost the entire territory of Dnipropetrovsk has been liberated,” Major General Oleksandr Komarenko, Ukraine’s chief strategist, said in televised remarks.

In the neighbouring Zaporizhia region, where Moscow had occupied almost three-quarters of the total area and advanced towards the eponymous administrative capital, Ukrainian forces have regained nine towns since January.

“These counterattacks are generating tactical, operational and strategic effects that may disrupt Russia’s Spring-Summer 2026 offensive campaign plan,” the ISW said.

According to Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the Ukrainian military’s General Staff, the gains are “tactical but very meaningful”.

But he told Al Jazeera that while Ukraine “amassed some reserves” to advance in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia, Russians keep pushing forward in key areas in Donetsk towards the towns of Sloviansk, Liman, Siversk and Kostiantynivka.

To Romanenko, lower recruitment numbers throughout Russia are key to Moscow’s losses.

“For three months, they’ve had nothing to create their reserves with,” he said.

In 2025, Moscow’s aggressive recruitment fuelled by a persuasive campaign and hefty signing bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars replenished the losses, and the monthly number of newly mobilised servicemen sometimes approached 60,000, he said.

But this year, Russia’s recruitment spree seems to be hobbled by financial problems caused by Western sanctions as the people needed to feed the front line seem exhausted.

Putin’s dilemma

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears wary of a public outcry that would stem from a full-scale mobilisation.

“Putin is afraid of conducting a full mobilisation. He’s looking for other ways,” Romanenko said.

One of them is the forced enlistment of university students, especially ones with low grades, as drone operators.

Several Russian universities from St Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city and Putin’s hometown, to Khabarovsk near the Chinese border, force male students to undergo drone flying training, the Movement of Conscientious Objectors, a Moscow-based rights group, said this month

Sometimes, the universities offer payments of 100,000 rubles ($1,260) a month on top of the Ministry of Defence’s salary if the newly trained operators enlist.

“They’re scaling up the process to form drone units. They pressure students into becoming drone operators,” Romanenko said.

Kyiv’s advances have so far not turned the table on the war, but they have definitely irked Moscow.

“The Kremlin is utterly displeased from the morale standpoint because their conception, their confidence that they are pushing along the entire front line is falling apart,” Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera.

Black Sea developments

Meanwhile, Washington’s and Israel’s strikes on Iran have postponed the resumption of United States-brokered peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow.

Other observers are sceptical about the significance of Kyiv’s territorial gains.

They “can hardly be called significant even considering the Russian army’s very modest success”, Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University told Al Jazeera.

By using amassed reserves in vulnerable front-line spots, Ukraine “manages in some cases to get back some territory”, he said.

The spots are mostly “politically sensitive” areas in the northern region of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk that Russia declared annexed after “referendums” held in 2022, he said.

The liberation of Dnipropetrovsk was part of a larger counteroffensive that also unfolded on the border with Zaporizhia, but it failed, he said.

Another less-publicised development is taking place in the Black Sea.

In February, Ukraine began a “systemic expulsion” of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet from its main harbour, the southern port of Novorossiysk, Mitrokhin said.

On March 1, drone strikes damaged five Russian warships, including one capable of launching Kalibr cruise missiles.

The fleet was evacuated to Novorossiysk from the port of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea in 2023 after Ukrainian aerial and sea drones and missiles destroyed its largest ships.

The attacks on Novorossiysk followed last year’s destruction of air defence systems in Crimea and of Russian aircraft that monitored sea drones, he said.

“Ukraine has enough drones, keeps producing new ones, but Russia has about two-thirds of its warships on the Black Sea,” Mitrokhin said. “Most importantly, they have nothing to flee to.”

The smaller vessels could be evacuated up the Volga-Don Canal but not to the Caspian Sea, where Ukrainian drones can easily reach them, but towards the upper Volga or the Moskva Rivers, where Moscow’s air defence systems can protect them.

Motorists around the globe are already feeling the impact of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, with fuel prices sharply rising since the war began.

In the US, a gallon of regular petrol that averaged $2.94 in February now costs $3.58, marking a 20 percent increase, according to data from AAA Fuel Prices, a retail fuel price tracker from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

While each US state sets its own petrol prices, several states have surpassed $4 per gallon, with California exceeding $5 per gallon, the highest level it has been in more than two years.

Which countries have the sharpest petrol price increases?

According to data analysed from Global Petrol Prices, a data platform that tracks and publishes retail energy prices across approximately 150 countries, at least 85 countries have reported increases in petrol prices following the initial attacks on Iran by the US and Israel on February 28. Some nations announce price changes only at the end of each month, so higher prices are expected for many others in April.

Vietnam recorded the highest petrol price increase of nearly 50 percent, rising from $0.75 per litre of 95-octane on February 23 to $1.13 on March 9. Laos follows with a 33 percent increase, then Cambodia at 19 percent, Australia at 18 percent, and the US at 17 percent.

The table below shows the countries that have increased petrol prices at the pumps.

Asian countries pay the biggest price

Asia is disproportionately dependent on the Strait of Hormuz for the delivery of its oil and gas, which has been effectively closed since the start of the war. The strait joins the Gulf – also referred to as the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Gulf – to the Gulf of Oman and is the only passage for the region’s oil producers to the open ocean.

Japan and South Korea are among the most vulnerable, importing 95 percent and 70 percent of their oil from the Gulf, respectively.

Both East Asian nations have enacted emergency measures to stabilise their energy markets. On March 8, Japan instructed its oil reserve sites to prepare for a potential release of strategic reserves. The next day, South Korea introduced a maximum price cap on petrol and diesel for the first time in 30 years.

In South Asia, the impact of the war is more severe than in East Asia because countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh have much thinner financial buffers and smaller strategic reserves.

In an attempt to conserve energy, Bangladesh‘s government has ordered all public and private universities to close immediately. In Pakistan, government offices will now operate a four-day workweek, while schools have closed, and a 50 percent work-from-home policy has been enacted to save fuel.

In Europe, the Group of Seven finance ministers convened an emergency meeting to discuss rising prices, with French President Emmanuel Macron raising the possibility of releasing 20-30 percent of emergency strategic reserves to ease the pressure on consumers.

How high oil costs drive up the price of food

Oil prices and food prices move in lockstep, with energy prices affecting every stage of the food supply chain, from the fertilisers used in the fields to the trucks that carry food from field to supermarket shelf.

Rising oil prices also directly affect shipping and the cost of transport.

“The lifeblood of the global economy is transport,” economist David McWilliams told Al Jazeera. “It’s getting stuff from A to B – it’s a logistics problem, a supply chain problem, and ultimately transportation is the energy of the global economy.”

Fears of stagflation – increasing inflation and rising unemployment, which major oil shocks have historically summoned – are rising. Economists point to the crises of 1973, 1978 and 2008 as evidence that every significant spike in oil prices has been followed, in some form, by global recession.

In lower-income countries, where populations spend a far greater share of their income on food and import large quantities of grain and fertiliser, rising oil prices could rapidly translate into food shortages.

What products are made from oil and gas?

Oil and gas are used for far more than just fuel. They are raw materials for thousands of everyday products.

Plastics, including water bottles, food packaging, phone casings and medical syringes, are all derived from crude oil.

Crude oil is also the hidden ingredient in synthetic fabrics such as polyester, nylon and acrylic, which are used to make everything from sportswear to carpets. It also underpins the cosmetics industry, as it is used to make products such as petroleum jelly (Vaseline), lipsticks and concealers.

Household items also rely on oil-based ingredients, with laundry detergents, dishwashing liquids, and paints all derived from petroleum products.

The global food supply is essentially built on natural gas in the form of fertilisers, used to enhance crop yields and ensure that food production can meet demand.