U.N.

Warns Gaza Is Heading for Famine as Specter of Wider War Looms

Officials of the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen threatened to respond to American-led airstrikes over the past two days.

By Declan Walsh and Raja Abdulrahim

Declan Walsh reported from Nairobi, Kenya, and Raja Abdulrahim from Jerusalem.
Jan. 13, 2024 Updated 11:17 a.m. ET

Sign up for the Israel-Hamas War Briefing. The latest news about the
conflict. Get it sent to your inbox.

The twin specters of a widening regional war and intensified suffering of civilians loomed over the Middle East on Saturday, as the
Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen threatened to respond to American airstrikes, and a day after a senior U.N. official warned of a
“horrific” humanitarian crisis in Gaza that he said was hurtling toward famine.

An American missile strike, launched from a warship in the Red Sea, hit a radar station outside the Yemeni capital, Sana, early
Saturday. The solitary strike came about 24 hours after a much wider barrage of U.S.-led strikes against nearly 30 sites in northern
and western Yemen that were intended to deter Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest
shipping lanes.

Houthi officials tried to brush off the latest assault, saying it would have little impact on their ability to continue those attacks. Their
stated goal is to punish Israel for blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza — though Yemeni analysts say the crisis also presents the
Houthis with a welcome distraction from rising criticism at home.

The greater risk is likely borne by ordinary Yemenis, whose impoverished nation has been crushed by years of civil war, and who
now face a high-stakes confrontation that imperils a fragile 20-month truce.

Some 21 million Yemenis, or two-thirds of the population, rely on aid to survive, in what the United Nations has called one of the
world’s worst humanitarian calamities — a dubious distinction now shared by Gaza.
 Houthi fighters at a protest in Sana, Yemen, on Friday, against U.S.-led airstrikes targeting Houthi military sites. Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In northern Gaza, where a crippling three-month Israeli siege has hit hardest, corpses are left in the road and starving residents
stop aid trucks “in search of anything they can get to survive,” Martin Griffiths, the top U.N. aid official, told the United Nations
Security Council on Friday. Saying that the risk of famine in Gaza was “growing by the day,” he blamed Israel for repeated delays
and denials of permission to humanitarian convoys bringing aid to the area.

Since Jan. 1, just three of 21 planned convoys intended for northern Gaza, carrying food, medicine and other essential supplies, have
received Israeli permission to enter the area, a U.N. spokesman said on Thursday. More supplies have been distributed in southern
Gaza, near the two border crossings that are open during limited hours, but aid workers say vastly more than that is needed to
meaningfully help Gazan civilians.

Qatar is mediating talks over a proposal for Israel to allow more medicines into Gaza in exchange for prescription medicines being
sent to Israeli hostages held by Hamas, officials have said.

Famine experts say the proportion of Gaza residents at risk of famine is greater than anywhere since a United Nations-affiliated
body began measuring extreme hunger 20 years ago. Scholars say it has been generations since the world has seen food deprivation
on such a scale in war.

The arrival of bitterly cold winter weather has exacerbated the struggle to survive, Mr. Griffiths said. Much of Gaza’s population has
jammed into overcrowded, deteriorating shelters in the south, with limited access to clean water and where aid workers warn that
disease is spreading fast.

In response to questions, Israel’s government on Friday denied it was obstructing aid, saying its permission was contingent on the
security situation, the security of its troops and its efforts to prevent supplies from “falling into the hands” of Hamas, the Islamist
militant group that controls Gaza. Israel launched its assault on Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack in which Israeli officials
say at least 1,200 people were killed and another 240 were taken back to Gaza as hostages.
 Injured Palestinians receiving treatment at the hospital in Khan Younis refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday. Mohammed Dahman/Associated Press

Since then, Israeli attacks, often using American-supplied bombs, have killed more than 23,000 people in Gaza, according to the
Gaza health authorities. At least 1.9 million people, or 85 percent of the population, have been forced from their homes, according to
the U.N.

Despite growing global criticism, and calls from the Biden administration to take greater care, the pace of Israeli strikes has not
relented.

The Israeli bombardment is intensifying even in areas where Palestinians had been ordered to flee for their own safety, Mr. Griffiths
said.

One strike on Friday on a home in Rafah, near the southernmost tip of Gaza, killed 10 people including several children, Palestinian
media reported. At least 700,000 Palestinians have fled to the area around Rafah, along the border with Egypt, hoping for safety.
Even there it is elusive.

“There is no safe place in Gaza,” Mr. Griffiths said. “Dignified human life is a near impossibility.”
 Palestinians preparing graves next to the border with Egypt, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday. Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock

Large protests calling for an end to the Israeli assault on Gaza, tied to the 100th day of the war, were expected across the globe on
Saturday in cities including London, Dublin, Washington, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.

In Israel, though, the focus was on the 136 hostages believed to still be held in Gaza. Families and supporters of the people taken
captive on Oct. 7 planned to hold an overnight vigil in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. Among the hostages are about a dozen people in
their 70s and 80s and a 1-year-old baby. Frustrated relatives have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to free them.

Like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis have been supported, funded and armed by Iran for many years.
American officials say Iran provided the intelligence used by the Houthis to target ships 28 times in the Red Sea since mid-
November, causing more than 2,000 other ships to divert onto a much longer route around Africa.

The Houthi response so far to the American and British airstrikes on Friday, which were supported by Australia, Bahrain, Canada
and the Netherlands, has been minimal: a single missile that dropped into the Red Sea about 500 yards from a passing ship on
Friday. The maritime security firm Ambrey identified the ship as a Panama-flagged tanker carrying Russian oil — an apparent
mistake, as Russia, an ally of Iran, had denounced the American-led strikes against the Houthis.

Still, the impact of the crisis on global trade is already being felt. In a Friday podcast after the Western strikes, Lloyd’s List
Intelligence, a shipping data company, said it was seeing an increasing number of container ships diverting to an alternate route
around the Cape of Good Hope, which typically adds 10 days and about 3,300 nautical miles to the trip.

Tesla and Volvo said they would be forced to pause production at some car plants in Europe, while Ikea warned that some supplies
may run low.

Many Yemen experts were skeptical that this round of U.S. strikes would force the Houthis to back down, and said the group could
even be strengthened. Since 2014 the Houthis have endured heavy bombardment by Saudi warplanes armed by the United States,
only to emerge as the de facto government in northern Yemen.
 The commercial ship Galaxy Leader, which was seized by the Houthis, anchored off the coast of Yemen last month. Khaled Abdullah/Reuters

A confrontation with the United States strengthens the Houthis’ ties to Iran, plays to popular sympathies with Palestinians and
could help to quell dissent, experts say: As a shaky peace has taken root in Yemen in the past 18 months, their economic failures
have become more evident, and internal opposition has grown.

The Houthis, for their part, warned that more assaults on Red Sea shipping were coming, as well as a more forceful response to the
United States.

“Washington will deeply regret its provocative practices in the Red and Arabian Seas, as will everyone who gets involved with
them,” Hezam al-Asad, a member of the Houthi political bureau, said in a phone interview after the latest American strike.

The only way for the United States to stop Houthi attacks on shipping, he said, was “an end to the war in Gaza.”
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting from New York, Roni Caryn Rabin and Patrick Kingsley from Jerusalem, and Anushka Patil from London.

Declan Walsh is the chief Africa correspondent for The Times. He was previously based in Egypt, covering the Middle East, and in Pakistan. He previously worked at The
Guardian and is the author of “The Nine Lives of Pakistan.” More about Declan Walsh

Raja Abdulrahim is a Middle East correspondent based in Jerusalem covering the Levant. More about Raja Abdulrahim