UN warns Gaza heading for famine as specter of wider war looms

THE TWIN specters of a widening regional war and intensified suffering of civilians loomed over the Middle East on Saturday, after the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen threatened to respond to US airstrikes and a senior United Nations (UN) official warned that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was hurtling toward famine.

A US missile strike, launched from a warship in the Red Sea, hit a radar station outside the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, early Saturday. The solitary strike came about 24 hours after a much wider barrage of US-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 — although Yemeni analysts say the crisis also presents the Houthis with a welcome distraction from rising criticism at home.

Two US officials cautioned Saturday that even after hitting more than 60 missile and drone targets with more than 150 precision-guided munitions, the US-led airstrikes damaged or destroyed only about 20% to 30% of the Houthis’ offensive capability, much of which is mounted on mobile platforms and can be readily moved or hidden.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal military assessments, said that US analysts have been rushing to catalog potential Houthi targets, but that doing so has proved challenging. Western intelligence agencies have not spent significant time or resources in recent years collecting data on Houthi air defenses, command hubs or munitions depots, they said.

The greater risk from the air attacks is probably 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.

About 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.

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 UN aid official, told the UN 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 UN spokesperson said 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 Palestinians.

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 UN-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 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 after 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.

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

Despite growing global criticism, and calls from the Biden administration to take greater care, the pace of Israeli strikes has not relented, and has even quickened in areas where Palestinians had been ordered to flee for their own safety, Mr. Griffiths said.