Since the United States and Israel first attacked Iran on Feb. 28, war has exploded across the Middle East. Just 13 days in, the costs have been staggering.
The loss of human life has been significant. At least 1,444 Iranians had been killed as of March 13, according to Iran’s health ministry, including at least 168 children who were killed in a strike on an elementary school that initial reports suggest the United States carried out. Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has killed more than 600 people and displaced over 800,000. Iran’s attacks across the region as well as its proxy Hezbollah’s assaults on Israel have killed more than 60 people and injured hundreds more. And 13 U.S. service members have died.
Since the United States and Israel first attacked Iran on Feb. 28, war has exploded across the Middle East. Just 13 days in, the costs have been staggering.
The loss of human life has been significant. At least 1,444 Iranians had been killed as of March 13, according to Iran’s health ministry, including at least 168 children who were killed in a strike on an elementary school that initial reports suggest the United States carried out. Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has killed more than 600 people and displaced over 800,000. Iran’s attacks across the region as well as its proxy Hezbollah’s assaults on Israel have killed more than 60 people and injured hundreds more. And 13 U.S. service members have died.
But the economic costs have also been staggering. Iran has launched missiles and drones at major economic hubs such as Doha and Dubai as well as effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil normally passes.
“Far from just another war in the Persian Gulf, this is the first conflict since World War II to directly impact cities and facilities that serve as hubs in the globalized economy,” Esfandyar Batmanghelidj wrote in Foreign Policy.
From oil prices to canceled flights, here are some key figures that provide a snapshot of how the war has already upended the global economy.
U.S. Defense Department officials offered this estimate at a closed-door briefing of lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. The figure does not include the costs of the United States’ monthslong military buildup prior to Feb. 28.
In earlier briefings, defense officials said $5.6 billion worth of munitions were used in the first two days. The United States alone expended an estimated 1,250 defensive and offensive munitions in the first 36 hours of Operation Epic Fury, according to an analysis by Macdonald Amoah, Morgan D. Bazilian, and Jahara Matisek in Foreign Policy.
“The expended munitions, and the minerals required to build them, are a defense-industrial problem for the West, and especially the United States,” they wrote.
Following an initially muted market reaction, the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, briefly surged to $119.50 during intraday trading on March 9 before easing back down below $100 later that day. Prices have fluctuated in and out of triple digits since March 11. Markets are “finally awakening to the gravity of the threat that the Iran war poses to the global economy,” FP’s Keith Johnson reported.
The spike is the largest of the past year, surpassing the one in June 2025 during the 12-day war between Iran, Israel, and the United States. As of Friday, oil is continuing to trade at more than $100 a barrel.
On Wednesday, the International Energy Agency announced that its 32 member countries had unanimously agreed to draw from their emergency stockpile of more than 1.2 billion barrels to help alleviate market disruptions and combat rising oil prices. This is the largest oil release, and only the sixth coordinated one, in the agency’s history.
The United States is also temporarily permitting countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil that is already at sea, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Thursday.
The Trump administration has “tried to unleash all of its policy levers—military, financial, and energy-related—to curb the consequences of the war that it unleashed, and all have been in vain so far,” Johnson wrote.
Gas prices in the United States have risen to more than $3.50 a gallon on average, more than $0.50 higher than this time last year.
Oil products and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the Gulf states have been severely choked by the war, and producers’ loss of revenue has been stark. Consultancy group Wood Mackenzie estimates that Saudi Arabia has lost out on the lion’s share of revenue—$4.5 billion since the war started, per the Financial Times.
The state-owned QatarEnergy, the world’s second-largest LNG exporter, shut down production last week, causing knock-on effects on global helium and fertilizer markets.
The war in the Middle East could “bring down the economies of the world,” Qatari Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi warned the Times.
Iran first vowed to fire on any ship attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz on March 2. Since then, about 500 oil and gas tankers, 500 container ships, and six cruise ships have been trapped on either side of the channel, the Guardian reported.
At least 22 civilian vessels—including tankers, container ships, and other bulk carriers—operating in and around the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman have been attacked by Iran since the start of the war.
In his first public statement since taking power, Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said on Thursday that “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must undoubtedly continue to be used.”
Amid the resulting rise in insurance costs for ships operating in the Gulf, the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. (DFC) announced that it would offer maritime reinsurance for certain as-yet-unspecified vessels, as part of the Trump administration’s effort to get energy shipments flowing through the strait again. The DFC will coordinate with U.S. Central Command as well as the U.S. Treasury Department to implement the plan, and the insurance company Chubb will serve as the lead partner.
As of March 11, more than 46,000 flights into and out of the Middle East had been canceled. Iran has targeted airports in several countries around the region, including the world’s busiest international airport in Dubai. Hamad International Airport in Doha suspended all flights from March 1 to 6 and is still operating at a fraction of its usual traffic.
Flight disruptions stranded hundreds of thousands of travelers in the region at the war’s outset, complicating evacuation efforts. FP’s Sam Skove reported on March 10 that the U.S. State Department had declined offers from laid-off officials to help with such efforts.
At the same time, jet fuel prices have risen even faster than oil. That cost will be passed on to global consumers, as airlines announce fare hikes and reduced schedules.
