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This is Planet Money from NPR.

Hello and welcome to Planet Money, I'm Darien Woods.

And I'm Patty Hirsch.

Tensions in the Middle East continue to ratchet higher.

As the conflict in 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 Hothi rebels from Yemen have attacked ships in the Red Sea and solidarity with Palestinians

and 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 MPR 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.

Wailin-Wong and Adrianar pick it up after the break

with a story we ran on our shorter daily show The Indicator.

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