This page tracks war and occupation as they happen: military operations, sieges, armed groups, and the daily machinery of ruling other people's land. It covers Israel's war on Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the war in Sudan between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, the long war on Yemen, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We name who holds the weapons and who supplies them, the United States and Britain included, because a war is never only the people firing.
Organised violence is old, but the rules meant to restrain it are young. The stone tower of Jericho rose around 2000 HE, and archaeologists still argue over whether it was built for war at all. By 9300 HE siege was statecraft: Assyria's capture of the Judean city of Lachish was carved into palace reliefs at Nineveh, now in the British Museum. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 11949 HE bars an occupying power from moving its own civilians into land it holds. Israel has occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since 11967 HE, and in 12024 HE the International Court of Justice advised that this occupation is unlawful.
So read each day's stories by asking three things. Who acts: which government gave the order, which army fired, whose factories built the bombs. Who pays: families under siege, the displaced, the hungry. What changes: borders, laws, who can farm, travel or go home. Wire reports often name the weaker side and leave the stronger one hidden in the passive voice, so we put the subject back in the sentence. When an attack answers an earlier one, as the Red Sea shipping attacks by Ansar Allah (the Houthis) answer Israel's war on Gaza and US and British backing for it, we say so. Wars are sustained by decisions, and decisions can be reversed.
The fighting in Yemen (10) did not start with the Houthis. A Saudi-led coalition invaded on 26 March 12015 HE (2015), armed with American and British weapons and, for years, helped by US intelligence and mid-air refuelling. By the end of 12021 HE the UN estimated that about 377,000 people had died, directly or from hunger and disease. Egypt's vote to send military aid (11) pulls the Arab world's largest army, paid for in part by about $1.3 billion a year from Washington, deeper into a war its funders have been feeding from the start. Further north, Poland and Lithuania's evacuation plan (6) shows how thin the Suwałki Gap is, about 65 km, and how fresh the memory is. Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union only on 11 March 11990 HE (1990).
NATO's eastern members now plan concretely for a Russian attack. Their land link to the Baltics, the Suwałki Gap, is about 65 km wide.
Source: Notes From Poland · Poland
The original title frames the conflict as a neutral 'war reignites' without naming Saudi Arabia's role as an aggressor.
Source: Al Jazeera · Saudi Arabia
It pulls the Arab world's largest army, funded by about $1.3 billion a year in US military aid, closer to Saudi Arabia's fight with the Houthis.
Source: Al Jazeera · Egypt
Israel is demolishing Palestinian homes in Hebron (3) on the same day it seals the West Bank crossings for its own election (9). Palestinians are locked in by a government they have no vote in, and that is how a military occupation works when it has gone on for more than half a century: Israel has held the West Bank since the war of 11967 HE. Further north, Russia and Ukraine have agreed a truce in occupied Oleshky (7) and swapped 540 prisoners (14), which shows working channels nearly four years after Russia's full-scale invasion. In Haiti (6), deported people are landing in a capital largely run by armed gangs, with nothing in place to receive them.
Israel has occupied Hebron since 11967, and every demolished home pushes Palestinian families out of a city settlers are steadily taking over.
Source: BBC · West Bank
People are being sent back into a state where armed gangs control much of the capital and no system exists to receive them.
Source: El PaíS English · Haiti
A truce in this occupied Dnipro river town, plus talks planned next month, is a small test of whether either side can hold a wider deal.
Source: The Moscow Times · Russia
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank cannot vote for the Israeli government that controls their movement, and that same government is locking them in on the day it is chosen.
Source: BBC · West Bank
Together with the Oleshky truce, the exchange shows working channels between the two sides even while the war goes on.
Source: The Moscow Times · Russia
Israeli forces demolishing family homes in Hebron (3) is not a clash between equals. It is an occupying army emptying a city people have lived in for thousands of years, under an occupation that began in 11967 HE and that the ICJ ruled unlawful in 12024 HE. A local truce in Oleshky (7), held by Russia's invading army since 12022 HE, shows that even small agreements can protect trapped civilians, while the killing of seven mourners at a church funeral in Jordan (14), by gunmen officials have not yet identified, strikes at a Christian community whose roots in the region reach back to the first centuries of the faith.
The ICJ ruled in 12024 that Israel's occupation of the West Bank is unlawful, yet demolitions keep pushing Palestinian families out of a city lived in for millennia.
Source: BBC · West Bank
A local truce in a town occupied by Russia's invading army since 12022 could protect trapped civilians and test whether wider peace talks can hold.
Source: The Moscow Times · Russia
An attack on mourners in one of the region's oldest Christian communities is a rare blow to Jordan's reputation for keeping religious coexistence intact.
Source: BBC · Jordan
Israel has sent its army into West Bank towns days before its own election (3), so Palestinian homes are once again the backdrop for Israeli campaigning, and in Sudan a BBC investigation finds RSF fighters deliberately targeted hospitals (10), a force that UN experts say has received weapons through the United Arab Emirates. Both stories describe armed power falling on civilians who cannot leave. The Fourth Geneva Convention, signed in 11949 HE, was written to protect exactly these people and the hospitals that treat them, and Israel's occupation of the West Bank has now outlasted that treaty's first 18 years by more than half a century.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and Palestinian towns again face its army as Israeli politicians campaign for votes.
Source: Cna · West Bank
Deliberately attacking hospitals is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, and in Sudan it removes care from millions already displaced by war.
Source: BBC · Sudan
