On October 2, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion dedicated to the situation in the Middle East. For decades, the Middle East has remained a region with numerous hotbeds of tension. Over the past several years, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has entered another active phase, and Israel's relations with its Arab neighbours are in crisis, despite attempts to normalise them in 2020. The Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli strikes on the Iranian consulate in Syria led to a new round of escalation.