7,000 Dead in Iran, and Analysts Say the Fighting Is Not Over

More than 7,000 people have died in Iran since fighting with the United States and Israel began 18 months ago, according to counts from Western NGOs. Lebanese media put deaths in Lebanon above 4,000. Twenty-one U.S. service members and more than 70 Israelis have been killed, with further deaths recorded in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen.

Danny Citrinowicz, who spent over two decades as an intelligence officer in Israel's military and now works at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said he expects strikes to resume once ballots are counted in the Nov. 3 U.S. midterms. He said a renewed war is nearly unavoidable, and that Donald Trump has "only bad and worse options" in the Persian Gulf.

The first exchange started in June 2025 with hits on Iranian nuclear sites. That round ran 12 days and stopped at a ceasefire that held only briefly. Fighting came back in February after the U.S. moved more forces into the region, opening with Israeli strikes on senior figures in Iran, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Since a truce collapsed over the summer, neither side has fired on the other's bases or territory, though the U.S. has blockaded Iranian ports and Iran has struck commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, raising energy prices worldwide. On Thursday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Iran is inflating oil prices before the election by "making up fake hits, mines and everything else." A report from the Critical Threats Project and the Institute for the Study of War read the ship attacks the same way: pressure on Washington to meet Iranian demands.

Iran wants sanctions lifted, payment for damage from earlier strikes, access to billions in frozen assets, and the right to keep its enriched uranium. Mediators from Pakistan and Qatar have worked for weeks to restart talks and have not succeeded. Citrinowicz expects a third round to reach Gulf energy sites, civilian buildings and communications, including internet cables under the Strait of Hormuz. He also raised the possibility of Iranian ground forces striking Gulf states that host U.S. troops, naming Kuwait and Bahrain, to hit the American economy.

Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution said the war has pushed Iran's leadership to hold tighter to the ideology behind the regime, and she warned that retaliation could come from proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, aimed at economic sites like airports. Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said Trump has no clear goal and that no military "knockout punch" will make Iran give in. Sadjadpour also said diplomacy has narrowed under Trump's demands, and that Iran would accept terms only if economic pressure came with a limited diplomatic route out. "If you're asking them to change their identity, that's not going to succeed," he said.

The New York Times and other U.S. outlets report the Pentagon is writing a new battle plan, though no one has said whether Trump would sign it. Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken of "finishing the job" in Iran and faces voters in the coming days in a race expected to be close. Citrinowicz said a wider crisis could keep Netanyahu in power through an emergency unity government with opposition members, and warned that political needs could combine with an Iranian event he inflates into an attack nobody planned. Voting in the U.S. midterms runs Nov. 3.