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Tensions across the Persian Gulf have spiked sharply this week, as Iran issued a stark public warning to neighboring Gulf states just hours after the United Arab Emirates announced it was severing all economic ties with Tehran, deepening a conflict that has already roiled the strategic region for months.

Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, delivered the warning Wednesday in comments carried by Iran’s state-run Mehr News Agency. Abdollahi emphasized that any form of support or logistical assistance provided to what he labeled the “aggressor United States military” would be treated as direct participation in Washington’s ongoing military operations against Iran.

He questioned the plausibility of the large contingent of U.S. military aircraft — including critical refueling planes — operating from bases across the Gulf region without the explicit knowledge and approval of host nations, adding that Iranian intelligence maintains full situational awareness of all activity in the area. “Gulf countries should know that we are fully aware of the situation,” Abdollahi said.

The warning comes in the wake of a series of escalating moves between the UAE and Iran that began earlier this week. On Tuesday, Abu Dhabi claimed that Iran had launched two ballistic missiles toward its coastline, with one projectile landing inside UAE territorial waters and the other falling in international waters. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei issued an immediate categorical rejection of the UAE’s accusation, denying any Iranian missile launch toward the country.

Shortly after the missile claim, the UAE announced it would suspend all trade, commercial and financial transactions with Iran until further notice. “In light of regional escalations… all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice,” said UAE foreign ministry official Afra al-Hameli.

This latest break in economic ties marks a significant deepening of the rift between the two nations. Prior to the outbreak of the regional war in late February, the UAE — home to a large, long-established Iranian diaspora community — was one of the largest trading partners for Iran, which has been crippled by sweeping U.S. economic sanctions for years. Since the war began, which followed the launch of heavy joint attacks on Iran by the U.S. and Israel, the UAE has already implemented a series of punitive measures against Tehran, including recalling its ambassador from Tehran and closing Iran-linked educational institutions and a medical facility in the Emirates. In the early months of the conflict, Iran responded with heavy strikes on targets across the UAE.

Beyond the escalating bilateral tensions between Iran and Gulf states, new reporting this week has shed light on a potential major shift in U.S. military posture in the region. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the Trump administration is actively evaluating a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Gulf, in the wake of repeated Iranian drone and missile attacks on large U.S. military bases located in the region. The policy review is being led by the Pentagon’s policy office, which has described the ongoing war as “a once-in-a-generation chance for the Pentagon to reconsider its presence in the region.” The outlet added that U.S. officials have already signaled they may not rebuild damaged Iranian-attacked bases to their pre-war operational capacity. This reporting corroborates an earlier investigation published in June by Middle East Eye, which cited current and former U.S. officials predicting a major overhaul of the long-standing U.S. basing framework in the Gulf. Former senior U.S. officials have publicly floated the prospect of a troop drawdown for months.

The shifting U.S. posture and rising regional tensions were further highlighted by an incendiary social media post from President Trump earlier Tuesday. Trump shared an altered map of the Strait of Hormuz — the strategic global energy chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes — labeled “NEW U.S. Territory” on his Truth Social account.

The post drew immediate mockery and pushback from Iranian officials. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X that the disconnect between Washington’s failure to reopen the strait and its claim to sovereignty over it is wider than the 11,265-kilometer distance between Washington D.C. and the waterway. “Welcome to the post-American order in the Persian Gulf,” Rezaei added.

Iran’s top nuclear and foreign policy negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf reaffirmed Tehran’s position Tuesday, stating that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed to international shipping until the U.S. fulfills its previously agreed commitments outlined in a bilateral memorandum of understanding, including the lifting of Iran’s naval blockade.

The fallout from escalating tensions has also reached East Asia. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun confirmed Wednesday that President Trump’s recent order to scale back joint U.S.-South Korea military drills includes implicit pressure on Seoul to commit greater support to the U.S.-led war on Iran. Cho noted that Trump’s order covers multiple overlapping priorities, including messaging toward North Korea and an effort to break the current stalemate in the Iran war, but added that neither South Korean nor U.S. national security officials had advance warning of the president’s announcement.

For nearly three years, Ahmed al-Siqali, a Palestinian father of seven, dreaded the day he would step back into the Gaza Strip. Just one week before the outbreak of full-scale conflict in October 2023, he had crossed out of the besieged enclave to take a construction job in Israel, a routine move for thousands of Palestinian laborers who relied on Israeli work permits to support their families. When border crossings closed immediately after hostilities began, al-Siqali found himself stranded in the occupied West Bank, cut off from his wife and children for more than two years. That separation turned to unthinkable tragedy in December 2023, when an Israeli airstrike flattened the Gaza City home where his family was sheltering, killing six of his seven children. Only his daughter Rosan survived alongside his wife Hayat. When Israeli forces finally detained him during a West Bank raid last month and deported him back to Gaza weeks later, al-Siqali stepped into a homecoming no parent should ever face.

Before October 7 2023, cross-border work was a common livelihood for Palestinian men from Gaza. Under a permit system run by Israeli authorities, thousands traveled regularly to Israel for jobs in construction, agriculture and services, sending earnings home to build better futures for their families. Al-Siqali had walked that same path: he had even purchased a new home near the Mediterranean coast in northern Gaza, fulfilling a long-held dream of his children to live steps from the beach. He never imagined that his final goodbye before leaving for work would be the last time he saw six of his children alive.

“I never imagined that the journey meant to build their future would separate our fates, leaving me unable to protect them or even say goodbye,” al-Siqali told Middle East Eye in an interview following his return. As communications across Gaza collapsed repeatedly in the first weeks of the war, reaching his family became nearly impossible. On the rare calls that connected, his children begged him to come home, repeating “We don’t want work or money. We just want you here with us.” The last successful contact came on December 8, 2023, when al-Siqali reached his wife through a rare working eSIM. In the few minutes before the line cut out, he could hear the terror in his family’s voices. Fearing the worst, he asked Hayat to write all the children’s names on their hands so they could be identified if disaster struck. Minutes after the call dropped, a relative called with the devastating news: the shelter had been bombed.

“There are no words that can describe what I felt at that moment. It was something no human being should have to endure,” al-Siqali said. Only two-month-old Eileen, whom he had held just once before leaving Gaza, was among the dead, alongside Mohammed, Muhannad, twins Kinan and Rayan, and Basant. “What did my children do to have their dreams taken away and be killed like this?” he asked. For two years, he remained stranded in the West Bank, passing days re-watching old photos and videos of a family trip to al-Nour resort taken just days before he left. The new coastal home he had worked so hard to buy was destroyed in the fighting, leaving nothing of the future he had planned.

His long wait for reunion ended abruptly on July 21, when Israeli forces raided the Qalqilya compound where he was staying with other displaced Gaza laborers. Al-Siqali, who had already warned his wife of the incoming soldiers, was detained along with all the workers in the building. After two weeks in Ofer Prison, he was transferred back to Gaza alongside 23 other Palestinian workers, cuffed and blindfolded for the four-hour journey to the Kerem Shalom crossing. From there, the International Committee of the Red Cross took the group to Nasser Hospital for processing.

“As I walked towards the crossing, my legs could barely carry me. I felt as though I was about to lose consciousness,” al-Siqali recalled. “All I could think about was my incomplete reunion, the reunion I had waited so long for. It had finally come, but my family was no longer whole. Instead of my children being there to welcome me, I was welcomed by their six death certificates.”

Waiting for him at the hospital was Hayat, who had spent two weeks without any word of al-Siqali’s fate after his arrest. The 36-year-old mother, who survived the airstrike with physical wounds and crippling grief, said her mind froze when the bus pulled in. “My heart pounded, and I wanted to fly to him, yet I didn’t know how to face him without our six children,” she said. When al-Siqali walked toward her, their three-year-awaited reunion was held in silence, broken only by shared tears. Hayat whispered the words that had weighed on her through months of displacement: “Forgive me. I couldn’t protect what you entrusted to me.”

Today, the small surviving family lives in a makeshift tent in al-Mawasi, a displacement camp in southern Gaza. UN data shows that more than 90% of all buildings across Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the start of the conflict, forcing nearly 1.9 million Palestinians from their homes. More than 800,000 displaced people live in makeshift tent settlements that offer almost no protection from extreme summer heat, disease and harsh weather. Al-Siqali, once a skilled construction worker, now struggles to adjust to the primitive conditions of camp life, with no work to turn to in a completely collapsed local economy.

Most days, he lies on a thin foam mattress in the tent, scrolling through the photos of his six children saved on his phone. Their six death certificates rest beside him. “This is all I have left of them,” he repeats. According to United Nations figures, more than 21,000 children have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank since the start of the war, with thousands more still missing and presumed dead, turning al-Siqali’s story of grief into one of thousands for Palestinian families across the region.