Houthis and Iranians have laid a trap – and the UK and US have flown right in
It’s not surprising the British and Americans have had another go at striking the Houthis in Yemen – but it’s just not necessarily all that clever.
Allied naval vessels have been threatened, the argument goes in London and Washington, the commercial shipping of other countries hit or hijacked.
It is essential something is done about it, say the politicians and military planners.
Middle East latest: Houthis warn UK and US to ‘expect response’
But how far have they thought it through? The operations risk a lot, will almost certainly not achieve their goals and are already strengthening the enemy.
The Houthis and their Iranian patrons laid a trap and Britain and America have arguably walked, or flown right into it.
The allied aim is to neutralise the threat posed by the Houthi rebel forces against international shipping in the Red Sea, through which a huge amount of oil and goods pass.
It is one of the vital arteries of international commerce. The longer the threat persists, the more it is going to affect all of us, in prices at the petrol pump and for online goods.
Once a rag-tag rebel army, the Houthis are now a fighting force to be reckoned with, dominating much of Yemen and armed and trained by Iran.
They have been attacking ships since the start of Israel’s Gaza offensive in solidarity with their Arab brothers, they say.
The Houthis are hitting the West where it hurts – but to be successful, the British-American airstrikes must entirely neutralise their threat to the Red Sea.
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Transport minister Huw Merriman says ‘we are not ruling out further strikes against the Houthis’.
While any threat persists, international shipping must avoid the Red Sea because of the punitive cost of insurance which has in some cases risen 20-fold.
That degree of success is unfeasible. Ask the Saudis who failed to deter the Houthis despite eight years of military action supported by Gulf allies, the UK and the US.
But more to the point, the capability the Houthis are using to threaten shipping is mobile and easily hidden in the desert wastes of Yemen.
The airstrikes will certainly degrade the Houthis.
Houthi fighters at a protest on Sunday against US and UK strikes on Yemen. Pic: AP
Tribesmen loyal to the Houthis sit during a parade for new tribal recruits amid escalating tensions with the U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea, in Bani Hushaish, Yemen January 22, 2024. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
‘Plucky’ Houthis revelling in popularity
But they only need to continue threatening shipping. For that, the Houthis need to hang on to a handful of portable assets and render the Red Sea unviable as a conduit for international shipping.
And despite everything British and American jets threw at them two weeks ago, they’ve managed to keep up the threat, letting loose missiles at shipping regardless.
Meanwhile the Houthis are benefiting from the military action where it counts for them in the arena of Arab public opinion.
While corrupt, decadent autocratic Arab regimes, as millions of Arabs see them, are doing nothing about Gaza, the plucky Houthis are. And they are revelling in it.
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Meet ‘Timhouthi Chalamet’
As Sky News has shown today, the conflict is making celebrities of the Houthis, like the man they are calling Timhouthi Chalamet, a young photogenic Houthi online influencer.
And the Houthis have successfully drawn Britain and America deeper into the Middle Eastern conflict that’s swirling around Gaza.
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Rishi Sunak may claim the airstrikes are “unrelated” to Gaza but that’s frankly nonsense. The Houthis have made this explicitly about Gaza. They began their action over the war there and will end it, most analysts agree, once there is a ceasefire.
The British and Americans are letting loose armaments worth tens of millions on one of the world’s poorest countries to allow Israel to do the same in another equally impoverished area.
That is certainly how this is being seen by hundreds of millions.
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None of that is any good for either countries’ standing in the Arab world and beyond. It is a PR disaster for Britain and America and a huge boost for the Houthis and by association their Iranian patrons.
The airstrikes may be blowing up bunkers and weapons stockpiles or rearranging sand in the desert but in the battle for hearts and minds across the Middle East, they are handing a victory to Iran and its allies.
And they are almost certainly not going to make the Red Sea a viable international trade route again, not until Israel ends its offensive in Gaza.
Tom Fletcher, speaking on behalf of the United Nations, did not mince his words.
Gaza was suffering from famine, the evidence was irrefutable and Israel had not just obstructed aid but had also used hunger as a weapon of war.
His anger seeped through every sentence, just as desperation is laced through the report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Gaza latest: UK calls out Israel for ‘manmade catastrophe’
Conditions are expected to worsen, it says, even though the Gaza Strip has been classified as a level 5 famine. There is no level 6.
A child attempts to access food from a charity kitchen in Khan Younis. Pic: Reuters
But it took only moments for the Israeli government to respond in terms that were just as strident. The report dismissed as wholly inaccurate, based on biased, inaccurate data and influenced not by fact, but by the whims of Hamas.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that oversees humanitarian efforts in Gaza, claimed the IPC had ignored its data and presented a “one-sided report”, before claiming that “hundreds of truckloads of aid are still awaiting collection by the UN and international organisations”.
What is so striking is that there is no grey area between these two versions.
In one, Israel has obstructed the delivery of aid and allowed hunger to turn into famine; in the other, it is Hamas that has caused the crisis by stealing aid and exploiting hunger as a political tool to try to win global sympathy.
People in Beit Lahia take sacks of flour from an aid convoy en route to Gaza City. Pic: AP
Journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza, so we are reliant on the work of colleagues who live there.
But the images are striking – emaciated people holding begging bowls, people scrambling towards aid drops or clambering over trucks carrying bags of flour. And all around them, shattered buildings.
Aid is continuing to be dropped by air, but humanitarian groups say it is not enough. Pic: Reuters
We heard from a man in his 70s, who used to weigh 70kg, but who has lost almost half his body weight.
“Now, because of malnutrition, my weight has dropped to just 40,” Hassan Abu Seble said. “I suffered both a stroke and a heart attack. They had to put in a stent to help me recover, and I thank God that my organs are still functioning.”
The Israeli government, and many across the country, will maintain that Hamas bears the responsibility for everything that has happened to Gazans – that it was the attack on 7 October, 2023, that was the sole precipitant for the suffering, death and hunger that has followed.
But from around much of the rest of the world, the condemnation is deafening, accusing Israel of allowing famine to fester.
The body of a child is carried from the scene of an Israeli military strike in Gaza City. Pic: AP
David Lammy, Britain’s foreign secretary, said the Israeli government had caused a “man-made famine” by blocking the distribution of aid, and described that as a “moral outrage”.
The question, as so often before, is what that rhetoric leads to. And, so long as the United States doesn’t join the chorus of disapproval, does widespread global disapproval mean anything?
There is also a question now of Gaza’s future.
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In the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, we found a large sign that says “Make Gaza Jewish Again”. It is a slogan, and a sentiment, that is supported by plenty.
“Yes, of course I agree,” says one man as he walks past, carrying a large pack of drinks. It turns out that he used to live in a Jewish settlement in Gaza until it was shut by the Israeli government two decades ago, but he has never stopped believing that Gaza is rightly Israel’s property.
“The people there now – they should leave. They could go to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt. It is our land. And yes, I would like to go back there.”
He did not believe there was a famine. “They have lots of food,” he told me.
Another man, Avraham, was more conciliatory, but insisted there had never been a country like Israel “that is fighting a war against a country but is also sending in so much humanitarian aid for the people”.
Gaza City is now the focal point of so much. Famine is spreading from this heart just as troops prepare to encircle the city. A ceasefire could come, but so could a huge military assault. And all the while, the hunger will get worse.
Approval of a huge new Chinese embassy in London has been delayed by the government over redacted areas on the embassy’s plans.
Beijing hasn’t fully explained why there are blacked-out areas in its planning application after housing minister Angela Rayner demanded an explanation earlier this month.
The government has now delayed its decision over whether construction can go ahead from 9 September to 21 October, saying it needed more time to consider the application.
The Chinese embassy in London expressed “serious concern” over the delay and said host countries have an “international obligation” to support the construction of diplomatic buildings.
“The Chinese side urges the UK side to fulfil its obligation and approve the planning application without delay,” said the embassy in a statement.
Site of planned Chinese embassy
Royal Mint Court, the site of the proposed embassy. File pic: PA
DP9, the planning consultancy working for the Chinese government, said its client felt it would be inappropriate to provide full internal layout plans.
It added that additional drawings provided an acceptable level of detail, after the government asked why several areas were blacked out.
Protests have been held outside the proposed site. File pic: Feb 2025, PA
“The Applicant considers the level of detail shown on the unredacted plans is sufficient to identify the main uses,” said DP9 in a letter to the government.
“In these circumstances, we consider it is neither necessary nor appropriate to provide additional more detailed internal layout plans or details.”
The embassy, which would be the largest in Europe, is planned for the 216-year-old site of the old Royal Mint Court next to the Tower of London.
However, opposition from local residents, lawmakers and pro-democracy campaigners means planning approval has been delayed for the past three years.
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Earlier this month, the embassy described claims that the building could have “secret facilities” used to harm Britain’s
national security as “despicable slandering”.
However, the executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which has ties to a network of politicians critical of the country, called the explanations “far from satisfactory”.
Luke de Pulford, who is a long-standing critic of the embassy plans, said the “assurances amount to ‘trust me bro'”.
A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.
These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.
The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.
Israel Gaza map
Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.
Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.
Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.
Israel says no famine in Gaza
Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.
“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.
Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”
Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.
Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.
“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.
The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.
Palestinians struggle to get aid at a community kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: AP
The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.
The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.
But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.
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