Key Points

  • Drone strikes directly impacted two AWS data centers located in the UAE; a Bahrain facility sustained damage from a strike in close proximity.
  • Cloud services such as EC2, S3, and DynamoDB reported higher error rates and reduced availability.
  • AWS managed to bring the Management Console back partially, though the company describes the recovery process as “prolonged” given the physical infrastructure damage.
  • The company advised customers to relocate their workloads to alternative AWS regions across the U.S., Europe, or Asia Pacific.
  • AMZN shares declined more than 2% during Tuesday’s pre-market session after the incident became public.

Amazon (AMZN) shares fell over 2% during pre-market hours on Tuesday after Amazon Web Services acknowledged that drone strikes connected to Middle East military operations had damaged its data center infrastructure in the UAE and Bahrain.


AMZN Stock Card
Amazon.com, Inc., AMZN

The incidents occurred Sunday morning according to local time zones. AWS first informed users via its health dashboard that “objects” had impacted UAE facilities, resulting in “sparks and fire.”

By Monday evening, AWS provided additional details. Two facilities in the UAE received direct hits, while the Bahrain location went offline following a nearby strike that caused physical harm to critical infrastructure.

“These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage,” AWS said in a statement.

The damage caused outages across several major services within the affected regions. EC2 virtual machines, S3 storage buckets, and DynamoDB — the managed NoSQL database offering — all experienced higher error rates and diminished performance.

According to AWS, DynamoDB error rates “remain elevated” without any “meaningful improvement” observed thus far. Lambda functions, Kinesis streams, and CloudWatch monitoring also “remain degraded.”

One bright spot: AWS successfully brought its Management Console back online, the web interface customers depend on for managing their cloud resources. However, this restoration remains incomplete, with certain pages continuing to display error messages.

Extended Recovery Period Expected

AWS indicated that recovery efforts will be “prolonged given the nature of the physical damage involved.” Engineering teams continue evaluating the complete scope of damage while maintaining worker safety as the top priority on site.

The company noted that certain data access and service functionality can be brought back online before the facilities achieve full operational status — and those efforts are currently in progress.

AWS holds the position of the world’s leading cloud infrastructure provider, making even regional disruptions significant for numerous customers.

The company recommended that customers operating workloads in the Middle East create backups of their data and evaluate migration options to other AWS regions spanning the U.S., Europe, or Asia Pacific.

AWS also cautioned that continuing instability throughout the Middle East could render regional operations “unpredictable” in the coming period.

Effects on Amazon’s Broader Operations

Amazon’s retail business in the region faced disruptions as well. The e-commerce giant posted alerts on its marketplace sites in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE indicating “extended delivery time in your area.”

The drone attacks occurred on the same day Iran executed missile and drone operations targeting Israel and U.S.-affiliated assets throughout the Gulf region, responding to U.S.-Israeli military actions against Iran.

Amazon explicitly confirmed the connection between the outages and the regional conflict in its Monday evening communication — marking the first official acknowledgment linking the damage to escalating military tensions.

According to the most recent status update, AWS conditions at the UAE location “remain largely unchanged,” with engineering teams continuing restoration work on full infrastructure capabilities.

Wall Street analysts hold a Strong Buy consensus rating on AMZN, featuring 40 Buy recommendations and 3 Hold ratings issued over the past three months. The average analyst price target stands at $282.21, suggesting approximately 35% potential upside from present trading levels.