← WW3 RISK TRACKER / THEATER: Gaza War & Israel – Hezbollah Conflict
Israel – Hezbollah, Hamas war
- Israeli fighter jets executed overnight airstrikes targeting several locations across southern Lebanon. ynetnews - News · 26 Aug 2026Reports: Israel strikes several targets across southern Lebanon
- The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet struck five Hamas weapons storage facilities hidden inside mosques across the Gaza Strip. ynetnews - News · 25 Aug 2026IDF, Shin Bet strike Hamas weapons sites hidden in Gaza mosques
- Peace Council Director-General Nickolay Mladenov warned the United Nations Security Council that military actions by Israel and Hamas threaten the Gaza ceasefire. JPost.com - The Jerusalem Post - All News from the Middle East, Israel, and the Jewish World · 26 Aug 2026Hamas, Israel both at fault for not upholding ceasefire terms, Mladenov tells UN
- The Lebanese Armed Forces arrested a Syrian national attempting to smuggle weapons across the Syrian border into Lebanon. אבו עלי אקספרס · 26 Aug 2026Lebanese Army: We arrested a Syrian citizen on the Syria–Lebanon border who tried to smuggle weapons into Lebanon.
- The Israeli military informed the High Court that it is blocking 33,000 displaced Palestinians from returning to West Bank refugee camps. Haaretz latest headlines · 26 Aug 2026IDF blocks return of Palestinians to West Bank refugee camps; UN data shows 33,000 remain displaced
Gaza Ceasefire Stability
Peace Council Director-General Nickolay Mladenov reported to the United Nations Security Council that continued armed faction rearmament and Israeli counter-strikes are exhausting the fragile Gaza ceasefire framework. Despite military pressure, Hamas retains political dominance in the enclave, even as mediators discuss a pilot phase proposal requiring Palestinian factions to surrender weaponry to a civilian governing authority. ynetnews - News · 25 Aug 2026Hamas survived Israel’s military assault and is now fighting for a political comebackJPost.com - The Jerusalem Post - All News from the Middle East, Israel, and the Jewish World · 26 Aug 2026Hamas, Israel both at fault for not upholding ceasefire terms, Mladenov tells UN
Southern Lebanon Conflict Dynamics
Israeli aerial operations persist across southern Lebanese municipalities near Nabatieh and Khiam, maintaining pressure on local infrastructure and suspected militant positions. Simultaneously, the Lebanese Armed Forces are enforcing border controls to intercept illicit arms flows, arresting individuals attempting to transport weaponry across the Syrian frontier into Lebanese territory. אבו עלי אקספרס · 26 Aug 2026Lebanese Army: We arrested a Syrian citizen on the Syria–Lebanon border who tried to smuggle weapons into Lebanon.ynetnews - News · 26 Aug 2026Reports: Israel strikes several targets across southern Lebanon
East Jerusalem UNRWA Enforcement
Israeli state authorities are advancing measures to permanently dismantle United Nations Relief and Works Agency operations in East Jerusalem following raids on the Qalandiya Training Centre. These actions align with broader land control and settlement planning around the capital's municipal perimeter while thousands of displaced Palestinians remain barred from returning to northern West Bank refugee camps. Haaretz latest headlines · 26 Aug 2026IDF blocks return of Palestinians to West Bank refugee camps; UN data shows 33,000 remain displacedAl Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera · 26 Aug 2026Israel extends campaign against UNRWA to advance West Bank annexationHaaretz latest headlines · 25 Aug 2026Israeli police launch major raid on last remaining UNRWA facility in Jerusalem
Syria Border Security Operations
Defense Minister Israel Katz reasserted that Israeli forces will maintain active deployments along the Mount Hermon border zone to preempt cross-border threats originating from southern Syria. The military posture follows targeted drone operations against suspected operatives near Beit Jinn as Washington urges regional restraint. ynetnews - News · 25 Aug 2026Inside Syria, night raids and farm permits mark Israel's expanding reachJPost.com - The Jerusalem Post - All News from the Middle East, Israel, and the Jewish World · 25 Aug 2026After strike on Turkish base in Syria, US urges Israel to show restraint
Assessment
Israeli military operations across Gaza, southern Lebanon, and Syria alongside administrative actions in Jerusalem continue to strain diplomatic frameworks, keeping theater instability at critical levels.
- 2026-08-22
Israeli military strikes commercial targets in central Beirut
Israeli military forces launched strikes against commercial locations in central Beirut.
- 2026-08-21
Israeli airstrike kills 12 medical workers in Bint Jbeil, Lebanon
An Israeli airstrike killed 12 medical workers in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil.
- 2026-08-15
Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon killed 11 people, targeting a Hezbollah commander.
On 15 August 2026, Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed 11 people and injured 19 following an attack that wounded three Israeli soldiers. Israel reported killing Hezbollah commander Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, marking the highest casualties since the June ceasefire.
4 more
- 2026-08-13
Israel and Lebanon reportedly reach agreement on monitoring framework for Hezbollah disarmament.
Israeli and Lebanese negotiators reportedly agreed on an oversight mechanism to supervise Hezbollah's disarmament as part of ongoing diplomatic talks. The development occurs amid continued friction over ceasefire implementation and localized military actions.
- 2026-08-12
Israeli drone strike targets Hamas commander in Gaza following week-long operational lull
The Israeli military launched an airstrike in northern Gaza targeting a Hamas operational commander, marking the first such strike in over a week. The action tested fragile security arrangements as international diplomatic talks regarding post-conflict monitoring continue.
- 2026-08-12
Israeli forces conduct airstrikes in southern Lebanon as Lebanese army expands operations.
The IDF carried out strikes against targets in southern Lebanon while the Lebanese Armed Forces continued operating in designated pilot zones. The strikes occurred as international discussions considered the UK and Italy to monitor Hezbollah disarmament.
- 2026-08-12
Israel conducts targeted Gaza airstrike and reported southern Lebanon strikes testing ceasefires.
Israeli forces carried out an airstrike in Gaza targeting a Hamas commander, marking the first strike in over a week. Concurrently, localized military activity and reported strikes in southern Lebanon continue to test international ceasefire arrangements.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Is Israel at war?
Yes. Israel is formally at war, fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah across the Lebanese border. It is a war between a state and armed movements rather than between two states. In the worldwide legal classification this registers as several strands at once: military occupation of Palestinian territory and armed conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah. The index reads 73/100 as of 1 January 1970 (full-scale war); above 50 it grades the fighting itself rather than the risk of it.
How dangerous is the Israel and Hezbollah, Hamas situation right now?
The index reads 73/100 — full-scale war. The scale is anchored on 22 historical episodes from 1914 to 2005, so the number means the same thing from one theater to the next. It is a measurement of what is reported, not a forecast.
How is the Israel and Hezbollah, Hamas risk index calculated?
By fixed formula from open-source reporting: events are extracted and graded by how well evidenced they are, scored across weighted factors, and the model never picks the number. How the index works, and what it does not measure, is explained at wwiii.report/methodology.
How often is this updated?
Every day. The report is rebuilt from that day's reporting and the index re-judged from it, and a fall is published only once the evidence confirms it.
Timeline events — hover the chart to read them
Timeline events — hover the chart to read them
Timeline events — hover the chart to read them
One 0–100 scale for the whole conflict. 0–49 is escalation before war; 50–100 is active war and how far it has gone.
50 is not a threshold the number can cross on its own. Which side a theater sits on is decided by whether verified belligerents are fighting there, so war onset always moves the score up across 50 — the number never declares a war by climbing.
It is a stage, not a probability: 42 is not a 42% chance of war. Below 50 it grades movement toward war, above 50 the war itself.
Why it moved, under the chart, names what changed in the latest move: the day’s readings — strikes, casualties, talks — and, when the conflict’s stage was re-judged, what was graded differently and the events behind it. Open it for the detail.
Re-judged from open reporting by fixed formula — the model never picks a number — and a fall publishes only once the evidence confirms it. A dot on the line is a day the stage itself moved. How it is made →
Direction — which way the week pushed. Severity — where the index sits. Connections — how much of the rest a shock here reaches. Cascade — that reach combined with how ready this theater is to go off.
The index reads the state of the conflict, not the volume of news. Each run grades the factors listed below against fixed rubrics, and the score follows by formula.
So a dramatic headline moves nothing unless it changes a grade. A theater already graded for recurring incursions absorbs one more without moving — it is priced in.
Open How this was measured for every grade, its movement since the last run, and the events behind it. Full construction →
A different measurement from the score above, from a different source. This line counts how much of the world's news reports conflict between these two states, against their own long-run normal: 100 is normal, 200 is twice the usual level.
It is computed mechanically from the GDELT Project's open event stream every 15 minutes and never touches the assessed index above — when both move together, that agreement is the signal. A day with too few events shows no reading rather than a guess. Click the chart for the full history.
Data: the GDELT Project.