Middle East Regional Crisis Concept of Operations

Content

Background

The humanitarian consequences of escalating hostilities in the Middle East have intensified since the beginning of the situation in February 2026, complicating the operating environment for humanitarian actors. The region is facing a severe humanitarian situation driven by the convergence of active conflict, extensive damage to civilian infrastructure, and preexisting vulnerabilities linked to sanctions, restrictions, and environmental stress. Since late February, intensified hostilities and airstrikes have damaged infrastructure, homes, health facilities, schools, and critical utilities, and have triggered largescale population movement in multiple countries.

The effects of the situation extend across the region, with primary operational impacts across Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, and Iran, and creating supply chain and market disruptions in neighbouring countries and regions, including East Africa. Concurrent shocks across these contexts have disrupted regional transport corridors, airspace, ports, border crossings, and fuel supply chains. These factors have resulted in increasingly complex, cross border logistics challenges, characterized by frequent rerouting, congestion, and rapidly changing regulatory and customs environments. The scale and geographic spread of these disruptions have highlighted the need for strengthened regional coordination and harmonized information management beyond country-level analysis.

In this context, a Regional Logistics Coordination Cell was established to support systemwide coordination and information management across primary affected countries in the Middle East and the surrounding regions experiencing the secondary effects of supply chain and market disruptions. The cell focuses on joint analysis, structured information sharing, and the consolidation of data related to supply routes, corridors, border points, airspace and airport status, customs procedures, and other logistics constraints that are evolving in response to the conflict. Through standardized mapping products, route tracking, and regular updates on bottlenecks and access constraints, the coordination mechanism aims to support informed operational planning and decision making by humanitarian actors operating across and beyond the region.

Logistics and Telecommunications Gaps and Bottlenecks 

Since the start of the situation in late February, logistics operations within and transiting through Iran and throughout the region have been disrupted by a combination of administrative restrictions, infrastructure damage, regulatory delays, and regional spillover effects. Airspace closures and unpredictable flight permissions across the region have significantly reduced available airlift capacity, while damage to airports, roads, and fuel infrastructure has increased lead times and constrained last mile delivery within countries. Border procedures have become more unpredictable, with heightened checks and temporary closures affecting overland corridors, leading to congestion and delays for relief cargo. Increases to freight insurance premiums and cancellation of insurance coverage are affecting humanitarian organisations as operators reassess risk exposure, limiting partners’ ability to scale operations. A major concern is therefore not a complete interruption of humanitarian supply chains, but rather reduced predictability, supply delays, increased operational costs, and localized logistical bottlenecks throughout the region and beyond.

The cumulative impact of the unpredictability and lack of visibility on supply chains has underscored the need for coordinated regional logistics planning and shared mitigation measures to sustain humanitarian access amid a rapidly deteriorating operating environment. 

In addition, disruptions to regular telecommunications within the region, such as the near complete blackout of telecommunications in Iran since mid-March 2026, have heightened operational challenges for humanitarian partners, limiting connectivity and complicating coordination efforts in affected areas. Anticipating these risks, there is a need for proactive coordination and preparedness activities regarding telecommunications. Such measures are essential to ensure that robust contingency plans are in place, safeguarding humanitarian response capabilities throughout the region. 

Access to reliable information on bottlenecks, alternative shipping routes, and changing regulations remains a considerable challenge faced by humanitarian partners. Key logistics challenges include:

1. Disruptions to air, sea, and road transport due to damaged infrastructure and restrictions on movement between ports of operation. 
2. Real-time data collection, analysis, and monitoring of the accessibility of roads, sea, and air for primary affected operations within the region, and to operations in neighbouring regions that are also affected by regional shipping disruptions. 
3. Fuel availability and price escalation remain a continued risk throughout the region, in both primary and secondary affected markets. 

Objectives 

These efforts aim to strengthen collaboration, improve operational efficiency, and ensure that humanitarian partners are provided reliable information to support informed decision making in a timely and effective manner. 

The objective of the Regional Logistics Coordination Cell is to provide humanitarian partners with timely, accurate, and actionable situational awareness to support uninterrupted logistics operations across the primary countries impacted by the conflict—Syria, Lebanon, Occupied Palestine Territories, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. This includes the systematic consolidation and analysis of both successful and disrupted supply routes, capturing changes in routing, modality, lead times, and capacity. Information on fuel availability and price fluctuations that directly affect transport costs, supplier viability, and operational feasibility will be monitored and shared with partners. The Cell will also collect and share information on customs, importation, and upstream pipeline challenges as the situation evolves within the primary affected countries in the region, enabling partners to anticipate delays, compliance risks, and evolving clearance requirements. A further objective is to ensure a shared, cross cluster understanding of telecommunications disruptions that affect coordination, tracking, safety, and service delivery, including outages, licensing constraints, and limitations on mobile, internet, and satellite connectivity. 

Regional coordination will support the mapping and regular updating of key logistics corridors, border crossing points, airports, and staging hubs, clearly identifying bottlenecks, access constraints, and closures—particularly airport and airspace disruptions within the Middle East and Gulf operating environment. Leveraging the active country-level Logistics Cluster operations in the region and beyond, the Regional Cell will provide harmonized information products and joint analyses to reduce duplication, enable informed operational decision-making, and support collective mitigation measures and advocacy at regional and country levels.

Planned Activities

The following range of activities are not intended to replace the logistics capacities of individual agencies or organisations, but rather to support informed decision-making through the provision of coordination and information management services and products.