Smoke billows above Beirut’s southern suburbs following an Israeli airstrike on November 26, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by FADEL ITANI/AFP via Getty Images)
BEIRUT — This year it was nearly impossible to choose just five stories from our coverage of the Middle East in 2024, a year of brutal wars, seismic shifts in power and, for now, at least some hope for broader peace.
It was a year in which stories about new technology, joint ventures and defense contracts were overshadowed by invasions and missile barrages, but that didn’t mean the business of defense was stagnant, as the Saudi World Defense Show and Qatar’s DIMDEX proved.
So, after much consideration, here are the top five stories for 2024 from my list:
[This article is one of many in a series in which Breaking Defense reporters look back on the most significant (and entertaining) news stories of 2024 and look forward to what 2025 may hold.]
1. What life looks like in Lebanon after 1 year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel
It’s the task of a journalist to report impartially, including when a conflict comes to your own country. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to tell human stories, including in this report about what life was like on Lebanon’s southern border during Israel’s invasion.
Most residents left the area, but some stayed, and a few told Breaking Defense what it looked and felt like to be in their homes while barrages of missiles and bombs were exchanged between Israel, Hezbollah and even Iran above their heads.
The “bombardment sounds never seem to pause. The nights are the worst,” one southerner told Breaking Defense.
But life elsewhere in Lebanon, including here in Beirut, did not feel safe before November’s ceasefire.
“Are we going to die tonight?” my children asked me every night while they rush into my room, awakened from their sleep, not by calls to get ready for school but from bombs. It was easy to see the black and white smoke plumes from these attacks rising above the city.
2. What a Turkish drone in the Raisi crash crisis reveals about Iran’s UAV capabilities
Who would have believed that the Iranian president’s helicopter would crash in fog, and that it would be a Turkish UAV to be deployed to find the crash site? That’s apparently what happened in May, even if Iranian officials later denied the drone had succeeded in its mission.
Either way, experts said the use of the drone and its onboard sensors revealed perhaps more than Tehran would’ve liked about Iran’s indigenous drone capabilities — as popular as they may be.
Can Kasapoglu, a Turkish defense expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said at the time he wasn’t buying Tehran’s claim. “Iran was dwarfed by the Turkish information superiority [and] overshadowed by NATO standards,” he said.
3. Past the deadline, Western defense firms still navigating Saudi Arabia’s localization mandates
Raising its domestic defense ambitions, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia called on all firms to set their regional headquarters in the Kingdom by January 2024. But at the Saudi World Defense show in February this year, Breaking Defense asked executives whether they have abided by this mandate.
Already past the deadline, Western firms said they were still navigating their path and ways to accommodate the mandate. They were doubly caught between a rock and a hard place, since many are already established in the United Arab Emirates, which is making a parallel localization push. Some firms got creative, while others tried to work their way around the issue and resorted to more generous interpretations of the rules.
“I don’t know if we read the [regional headquarters] request that specifically but we are working with the government to make sure that we support whatever the request turns out to be in the right way and, again, I think our interpretation may be a little bit different than you described,” Boeing Defense, Space & Security President and CEO Ted Colbert (who has since left the company) told Breaking Defense then.
4. Iran shows off naval guns, missiles and UAV named ‘Gaza’ at Qatari defense show
As rare as it is for Iran to show it arms in a defense show abroad, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps made a surprise appearance with their armament in Qatar at Dimdex.
Breaking Defense was able to speak with Iranian officials and get a close view of the systems exhibited. From a drone dubbed “Gaza” to naval guns, radars and missile defense systems, the Iranians had an array of systems to show the world.
All of the systems at the stand were developed and produced by Iran and, one official said, are open for export to any country “except Israel and [the] US.”
5. Russian bases and Hezbollah weapons: Key questions follow fall of Syrian regime
At the tail end of 2024, more than half a century of the Assad family rule in Syria came to an end. Rebels took over one city after another, reaching Damscus apparently after Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad fled to Russia.
But below the surface, key questions festered about the future of Russian military bases in Syria as well as Hezbollah arms transfer routes from Iran.
And of course the broader question: What does 2025 have in store for the Middle East. Check back here at BreakingDefense.com, where I’ll have a preview story that could answer exactly that question.
