This Document lists major interstate wars, direct state attacks, and major regional interventions involving Middle Eastern countries and external powers active in the region. Casualty figures are approximate and often disputed.
| Date | Conflict | Trigger / who started it | Target | Deaths / casualties |
| 1948-49 | Arab-Israeli War | Arab states invaded after Israel declared independence | Israel / Jewish forces | 5,700-6,400 Jews/Israelis killed; 10,000-15,000 Palestinian Arabs killed; about 1,400 Egyptians killed; plus hundreds from Jordan, Iraq, and Syria and dozens of Lebanese troops. |
| 1956 | Suez Crisis | Israel invaded Sinai; Britain and France joined after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal | Egypt | Casualty totals vary widely by source; Egypt suffered most of the losses. |
| 1967 | Six-Day War | Israel launched preemptive strikes amid escalating regional mobilization and blockade tensions | Egypt, Jordan, Syria | More than 11,000 Egyptians, about 6,000 Jordanians, about 1,000 Syrians, and about 700 Israelis killed. |
| June 1967 | USS Liberty attack | Israeli air and naval forces attacked a U.S. Navy intelligence ship during the Six-Day War | United States naval vessel | 34 Americans killed; about 170 wounded. |
| 1969-70 | War of Attrition | Egypt and Israel carried out sustained artillery, air, and commando attacks after 1967 | Each other | Casualties ran into the thousands; totals vary by source. |
| 1973 | Yom Kippur War | Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur / during Ramadan | Israel | Heavy losses on all sides; concise reference totals vary by source. |
| 1980-88 | Iran-Iraq War | Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980 | Iran | Often estimated at 1 million to 2 million total casualties, with perhaps 500,000 killed. |
| 1982 | Lebanon War | Israel invaded Lebanon to expel the PLO from bases there | Lebanon / PLO / Syrian forces in Lebanon | Deaths ran into the many thousands; totals vary depending on scope counted. |
| 1983 | Beirut barracks bombing | Hezbollah-linked militants struck multinational forces during Lebanon intervention | U.S. and French forces in Beirut | 241 U.S. service members killed and 58 French paratroopers killed. |
| 1990-91 | Gulf War | Iraq invaded Kuwait; then a U.S.-led coalition attacked Iraq to expel Iraqi forces | Kuwait, then Iraq | Coalition deaths were relatively low; Iraqi military and civilian deaths are widely disputed, generally from tens of thousands upward. |
| 2003-11 | Iraq War | U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq over WMD and regime-change claims | Iraq | 4,419 U.S. military dead and about 31,993 wounded in action; Iraqi deaths far higher and disputed. |
| 2006 | Israel-Hezbollah War | Hezbollah cross-border raid and rocket fire triggered major Israeli response | Israel and Lebanon/Hezbollah | Roughly 1,100-1,200 deaths in Lebanon and about 150-165 in Israel. |
| 2011-present | Syrian war with interstate interventions | Syrian uprising became civil war; later direct interventions by Iran, Russia, Turkey, the U.S., Israel, Gulf states, and others | Syria / multiple parties | Nearly 614,000 direct war deaths documented by one monitor; more than 300,000 civilian deaths estimated by the UN by 2022. |
| 2014-present | U.S.-led war against ISIS | U.S.-led coalition operations against ISIS | ISIS in Iraq and Syria | About 120 U.S. military deaths and 496 wounded in action in current DoD summary; local deaths much higher. |
| 2015-present | Saudi-led intervention in Yemen | Saudi-led coalition intervened against the Houthis in Yemen’s war | Houthis / Yemen conflict parties | Deaths from direct and indirect causes run into the hundreds of thousands; attribution by actor is difficult. |
| 2023-present | Israel-Hamas war with regional spillover | Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023; Israel responded militarily; war spread regionally | Israel, Gaza, and regional targets | About 1,200 killed in Israel in the October 7 attack; at least 54,000 Gazans killed directly by hostilities by June 2025 in Britannica’s summary. |
