A presidential election in Iran next month could provide the final straw to split an already long-divided conservative political camp, after years of growing divisions.

When an Israeli air strike targeted a security office near her home in Gaza this month, 10-year-old Zeina Dabous frantically scribbled a note and slipped it under her mother's pillow.

The war between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas has killed hundreds, displaced thousands from their homes and ravaged key infrastructure.

The diplomatic flurry was over and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu was on the phone telling U.S. President Joe Biden that it appeared the furious fighting between Israel and Hamas was about to end.

But Biden remained wary even after the afternoon phone call with the prime minister. Things still could go crosswise with hours to go before the cease-fire took effect, Biden's team reasoned.

Ever since their last war in 2006, Israel and Hizbullah have constantly warned that a new round between them is inevitable. Yet once again, a potential trigger has gone unpulled.

Hizbullah's shadow loomed large during Israel and Hamas' two-week battle, with the possibility it could unleash its arsenal of missiles -- far more powerful than Hamas' -- in support of the Palestinians.

It took just days for decades-old tensions between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to spiral out of control, causing deaths and chaos not just in Gaza but across the Jewish state.

The deadly escalation between Israel and the Palestinians has embarrassed Gulf states which forged ties with the Jewish state and put a strain on their Abraham Accords that were billed as a game-changer.

The surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence has flummoxed the Biden administration in its first four months as it attempts to craft a Middle East policy it believes will be more durable and fairer than that of its predecessor.

Its early hesitation to wade more deeply into efforts to resolve the decades-long conflict has created a leadership vacuum that is exacerbated by political uncertainty in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, each of which is clamoring for outside support and unhappy with America's new determination to toe a middle line.

Israel's longest serving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has until midnight Tuesday to form a new government if he is to hang onto power.

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, following the 9/11 terror attacks, targeted Al-Qaeda in the sanctuaries provided by the then Taliban government.

As the US formally begins withdrawing its troops from the country Saturday, bringing its longest war nearer to an end, a timeline of the last two decades: