Traffic in Tehran on Wednesday moves past an installation depicting butterflies forming the Iranian national flag. Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
October 22, 2026 • The U.S. and Israel are preparing plans for a possible attack on Iran in early November, after the U.S. midterm elections, a person briefed on war planning told NPR. Iran said it is prepared.
Israeli security forces, including military and police, declared a closed military zone around a olive grove and escorted activists and rabbis away from the area before detaining them near the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit in the occupied West Bank. Ruth Sherlock/NPR hide caption
October 21, 2026 • In the Israeli occupied West Bank, dozens of Americans have been detained, including a politician running for Congress.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, speaks with supporters while he campaigns ahead of the country's general election at a shopping mall in Ramla, Israel, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. Ariel Schalit/AP hide caption
October 19, 2026 • Israel holds an election on October 27th, electing members of the Knesset, their parliament. And this election will decide the future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Photojournalist Heidi Levine leaves a hospital emergency room in a wheelchair in the Israeli-occupied city of Ramallah, West Bank. She's being treated after an attack by Israeli settlers as she was photographing Palestinian farmers harvesting their olives, in the Palestinian village of Abu Falah on Friday. Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
October 16, 2026 • Masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians as they were harvesting olives in the occupied West Bank on Friday, injuring several people including a photojournalist working for The Washington Post .
A mural depicting Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, directors of the documentary NAZA about Israeli military killing of Palestinians in the war in Gaza, has layers of graffiti on it, in Ashdod, Israel. Initially painted by an artist accusing the filmmakers of being "traitors," someone later scrawled the Hebrew word for "heroes" over it. Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images hide caption
October 15, 2026 • In the new documentary “NAZA”, two dozen anonymous Israeli military and intelligence officers describe how they used an AI-powered system to kill Palestinians in Gaza. The film’s premiere received a 25-minute standing ovation at Venice International Film Festival. But in Israel, it has caused a major backlash.
A Palestinian mother mourns her son, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike just over a month into the ceasefire, at Al-Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, on Nov. 20, 2025. Anas Baba/NPR hide caption
October 10, 2026 • It has been one year since Hamas released the remaining Israeli hostages and President Trump promised an end to the war, but Palestinians say the past 12 months have been a ceasefire in name only.
Tents sheltering displaced Palestinians stand amid damaged buildings in Gaza City, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026. Jehad Alshrafi/AP hide caption
October 8, 2026 • It has been three years since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that led to Israel’s invasion of Gaza. It’s a war that has yet to end, despite a ceasefire.
Construction work taking place in a massive new neighborhood in Sderot, Israel, located less than a mile from the Yellow Line, on Sept. 1, 2026 Amit Elkayam for NPR hide caption
October 7, 2026 • Three years after the October 7th attacks, Israel’s southern border with Gaza is undergoing a dramatic rebound. That region was nearly abandoned after thousands of Hamas-led militants attacked Israeli communities. That attack killed nearly 12-hundred people, and 250 more were taken hostage.
Trees line a road inside Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel on Aug. 31, 2026, amid efforts to rebuild communities near the Gaza border after the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7. Amit Elkayam for NPR hide caption
October 7, 2026 • Three years after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 emptied communities along Israel's border with Gaza, residents are returning and new families are moving in.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lays a wreath during a state memorial ceremony in memory of those killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, at Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem on Oct. 5. Debbie Hill/Pool UPI via AP hide caption
October 7, 2026 • On the three-year mark since the Hamas-led deadly attack, Israelis are grappling with reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was repeatedly warned by regional allies ahead of time.
Vehicles drive past a billboard carrying the Arabic slogan "Reclaiming the decision and building the home," at Saadoun Square in Baghdad on Tuesday. Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
September 30, 2026 • 23 years after the United States military invaded Iraq, sparking an insurgency and a civil war, the U.S. has withdrawn its forces, as the country still tries to combat Iranian influence.
President Donald Trump speaks as Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster listens at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., in February 2017. Susan Walsh/AP hide caption
September 30, 2026 • Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who commanded U.S. troops in Iraq, says the withdrawal could strengthen Iran and leave Iraq more vulnerable to ISIS.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters in New York, Sept. 22. Seth Wenig/AP hide caption
September 29, 2026 • Turkey's bid for regional influence comes as the Middle East has been hit by profound shocks that started with the Hamas-led 2023 attack on Israel and continue with the seven-month-old war on Iran.
President Trump waves to the media on the South Lawn of the White House on September 26, 2026 in Washington, D.C. Trump is traveling to Knoxville, Tennessee to attend the University of Tennessee vs. University of Texas College football game. Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images North America hide caption
September 26, 2026 • President Trump said he was rejecting an Iranian plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian proposal is similar to a memorandum of understanding agreed upon by the U.S. and Iran back in June.
Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour at his home in Jerusalem, surrounded by his paintings on Nov. 18, 2025. Afif Amireh for NPR hide caption
September 23, 2026 • Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour spent his life painting the faces and landscapes of Israeli occupation. His sons say NPR was the last media to meet him before he died in August.
Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran's president, addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York, on Wednesday. John Lamparski/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption
September 23, 2026 • Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the U.N. General Assembly a day after President Trump threatened from the same podium to "annihilate" Iran.
Yemen's Houthi armed forces patrol as Yemeni prisoners loyal to the Houthi authorities arrive in the capital Sanaa on Sep. 12, after being released on the west coast where they were being held by Yemen's Saudi-backed government forces. Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
September 22, 2026 • As the U.S. conflict with Iran drags, the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have opened a new front, taking new territory and displacing more than 100,000 people.
Supporters of Yemen's Houthi rebels shout slogans during a rally in support of the group in Sanaa, Yemen, Friday. Osamah Abdulrahman/AP hide caption
September 19, 2026 • Saudi Arabia said Yemen's Houthi rebels tried to attack Riyadh with a ballistic missile, the first time its capital has been targeted since the escalation in fighting with the Iran-backed rebels.
French UNIFIL peacekeepers patrol beyond the "yellow line" — the boundary of occupying Israeli forces — through the flattened towns of Houla, Kfar Kila, and Odaisseh. Israel has established a restricted buffer zone beyond that line after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire this year. Diego Ibarra Sánchez for NPR hide caption
September 19, 2026 • The U.N. expanded the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon's mandate 20 years ago to include monitoring adherence to a ceasefire in fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah — the militant group created in 1982 to counter a second Israeli invasion.
A man reacts to the camera while driving past a monument depicting the clenched fist of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, and a missile at the Islamic Revolution square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Tuesday. Vahid Salemi/AP hide caption
September 17, 2026 • Human rights experts commissioned by the U.N. say they have found "reasonable grounds" to believe the U.S. committed war crimes in Iran, including a strike on a school in the southern city of Minab.
Raja Shehadeh looks at folders from his archive in 2026. Yazeed Abu Khdeir hide caption
September 12, 2026 • Leading Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh has documented Israel's occupation of the West Bank since day one. Fearing the occupation might consume his archive, he secretly moved it to Scotland.
People walk past closed shops at the nearly empty traditional main bazaar during Iranian New Year, or Nowruz, holidays in Tehran, Iran, March 29, 2026. Vahid Salemi/AP hide caption
September 11, 2026 • Many Iranians lost their jobs because of the war and the U.S. blockade. Now some are even losing their backup jobs as sanctions tighten.
