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This is Planet Money from NPR.
Hello and welcome to Planet MonEy.
I'm Darian woods.
And I'm Paddy Hirsch.
Tensions in the Middle east continue to ratchet higher as the conflict in Israel, Israel and Gaza rages.
Other regional and international actors are beginning to get involved.
The militant group Hezbollah has fired missiles into Israel from Lebanon, while houthi rebels from Yemen have attacked ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Those attacks, in turn, have provoked a military response, including strikes on the mainland of Yemen from both the US and the UK.
And this week, Iran launched a ballistic missile strike into northern Iraq, saying it was aimed at Israelis who it claims were involved in a suicide bombing in Iran.
Recently, our colleagues at NBR have been covering the political and human toll of this continued escalation.
And today we trace some of the economic ripple effects of the conflict as it expands outwards.
We look at the three stages of possible escalation and the pressures they put on the region's biggest export, oil.
But first we start in the Red Sea, where american warships are defending global shipping routes.
Weyland Wong and Adrian Ma pick it up after the break with a story we ran on our shorter daily show.