The price of war is just beginning to be paid.

There is almost no person on the planet who has not, directly or indirectly, felt the consequences of the US-Israeli war against Iran, writes "The Guardian", emphasizing that the conflict has claimed thousands of lives in the region, while millions of people around the world pay its price every day through more expensive food, fuel and inflation that devalues ​​their earnings.

For many, the final reckoning of this war is yet to come, through the long-term damage caused to the global economy by uncertainty - a factor that is difficult to measure, but which is reflected in growing geopolitical risk, weakening investment and slowing employment, the British newspaper points out.

According to the assessment of US Federal Reserve economists Dario Kaldar and Mateo Jakovieli, the war in Iran had a destabilizing effect greater than the Covid-19 pandemic, but comparable to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 or the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The cost of war is estimated in different ways: some costs are easily expressed in money, such as surface-to-air missiles that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each, while the damage to hospitals and power grids in Iran and Lebanon is much more difficult to estimate. The heaviest losses, however, cannot be expressed in money at all - human lives, including the 120 elementary school children killed in Iran on the first day of the war.

A senior UN humanitarian official has pointed to what has been lost because of the war, saying that the $2 billion spent daily on military operations could provide aid to some 87 million people.

On the other hand, while many paid the price of the conflict, some benefited from it, the Guardian states, adding that this primarily applies to oil companies and shareholders of arms manufacturers, whose incomes grew in parallel with the spread of the war.

Lost lives

In Iran, more than 3.300 people have been killed and more than ten times as many wounded in US and Israeli bombings, according to Iranian authorities. Twenty schools have been destroyed and 240 health and medical facilities damaged. Water pipes have been destroyed, and cultural sites, including five World Heritage sites and 54 museums, have been damaged.

Israel opened a second front in the war when it invaded its northern neighbor, Lebanon, where it is battling the Iranian-allied militant group Hezbollah. The war within the war has become the deadliest part of the wider conflict - Israeli strikes have killed more than 3.700 people, according to Lebanese authorities, including women, children and medical personnel. The widespread Israeli bombardment of civilian areas has displaced more than a million Lebanese - about a fifth of the country's population.

More than 100 people have been killed in Iraq, where Iran-allied groups operate, and about 50 people have been killed in Israel. At least 15 US military personnel have been killed since the war against Iran began on February 28, and US bases across the region have suffered significant damage.

Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, have faced Iranian drone and missile attacks, which have killed civilians and damaged hotels, airports and key oil and gas infrastructure.

Slowing global economic growth

The Guardian recalls that the International Monetary Fund said in April that the global economy was on the brink of collapse due to “higher trade barriers and increased uncertainty last year,” alluding to Trump’s tariff war. As the war continued, the IMF and World Bank lowered their forecasts for the global economy.

The UN estimates that 32 million people could fall into poverty due to the consequences of the conflict.

Economists at investment bank Goldman Sachs estimate that US economic growth will be 0,5 percentage points lower because of the war. Even if the war ends quickly, the US will be paying for it for years.

Even the White House doesn't deny that the war will come at a huge cost, but it has tried to downplay the estimated cost. One estimate in May came from a senior Pentagon official, who said the conflict had cost $29 billion so far.

Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, wrote in the New York Times that, when the full macroeconomic consequences are factored in, the average American household will likely have to pay thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars, for the war.

Serious business shocks also began to appear. The world's largest car manufacturer, Toyota, reported a loss of three billion pounds as the prices of parts and materials rose sharply and sales fell.

Rising jet fuel prices

The International Energy Agency, the world energy body established in the 1970s in response to the oil crisis, has clearly assessed the impact of the conflict on fossil fuels. “The war in the Middle East is causing the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” it said.

Jet fuel prices have doubled and thousands of flights have been canceled. One US airline has already gone bankrupt. Although the agreement announced this week has led to a drop in oil prices, they have only fallen by a few dollars. It is estimated that it will be months before the oil market stabilizes.

As oil prices soar, profits at major energy companies have soared. Defense contractors are also benefiting from the uncertainty and rush to buy missile defense technology. And shareholders are celebrating the resilience of stock markets, largely thanks to the boom in artificial intelligence, although there are concerns that traders are not sufficiently factoring in the risk of long-term turmoil.

However, the Guardian points out that there is hope that the crisis could reshape the global energy order in the long term, highlighting the dependence on fossil fuels from the Middle East and accelerating the transition to renewable energy sources.

The cost of living crisis

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has created a bottleneck that is causing disruptions in energy supplies to flow through the production of chemicals and fertilizers to food prices, increasing the losses of the world's poorest countries.

Signs of the toll the war is taking on people and businesses around the world are already visible. In Asia, the world's most populous continent, restaurants are closing due to shortages of cooking gas, and gas stations are limiting fuel sales. In Thailand, some temples have suspended cremations.

The resulting rise in oil prices has fueled fears of harmful inflation. Last month, Turkey's central bank raised its year-end inflation forecast from 16 percent to 26 percent.

Meanwhile, exports of key products, such as fertilizer essential for food production, have plummeted.

The UN estimates that 32 million people could fall into poverty as a result of the war, mainly due to its impact on energy and fertilizer supplies.