Region

PARIS — The spike in attacks claimed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea is dangerously increasing tensions in a bottleneck for international maritime trade and fuelling fears of an uncontrolled regional spillover of Yemen’s longstanding conflict.

Since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have threatened to attack any ship heading to Israeli ports and stepped up their raids.

On Tuesday, Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for a missile strike on a Norwegian-flagged tanker, an attack the Iran-backed group said was part of its military campaign against Israel.

Last month, they seized an Israel-linked cargo vessel, the Galaxy Leader, and its 25 international crew.

The Houthis, who control much of Yemen but are not recognised internationally, are part of the Iran-backed so-called “axis of resistance” arrayed against Israel.

They say they are defending the Palestinians from an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, and have launched a series of drones and missiles towards Israel. US and French warships patrolling the Red Sea have shot down Houthi missiles and drones several times since the militants began the attacks.

A vital link between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea is a key trade route for global shipping and energy supplies.

Some 40 per cent of international trade passes through the Strait of Bab Al Mandeb, or the “Gate of Tears”, a narrow waterway which separates the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa.

“This is a rather dangerous moment for the stability of this strategic region,” said Camille Lons, a researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies added: “The Houthis have the capacity to cause considerable damage.”

While warships passing through the Red Sea are well equipped and can retaliate, commercial vessels do not have the same protections. “The US Navy cannot escort every civilian vessel in the Red Sea,” said Hinz.

Iran influence 

In recent years ties have grown between the Houthi rebels and Iran but the extent of their cooperation and coordination remains a major question.

The Houthis say they manufacture their drones domestically, although analysts say they contain smuggled Iranian components.

“The big question of course is the exact nature of Iranian involvement in these strikes,” said Hinz.

“Houthi equipment is mostly Iranian technology, but we know very little about Tehran’s involvement in decision-making.”

Many experts insist on the degree of autonomy of the Yemeni rebels.

Lons said that Houthis “don’t answer to Tehran like the Lebanese Hizbollah does, the jewel in the crown of Iranian proxies in the region”.

“The Houthis would exist with or without Iran,” Franck Mermier, a Yemen expert at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, told AFP.

“They have a religious and ideological closeness to Iran, but they are Yemeni fighters first and foremost”, he said.

“I’m not sure the Iranians push the button on every attack,” added Mermier.

In contrast to Hizbollah’s creation during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, Iran had had no role in the birth of the Houthi movement.

The rebels adhere to a branch of Shiite Islam known as Zaidism.

‘Unpredictable and dangerous’ 

At the weekend Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi urged the international community to rein in the Yemeni rebels.

“If the world does not take care of it,” Hanegbi warned, “we will take action.”

Analysts said that the tensions could get out of hand quickly.

“The Houthis are totally unpredictable and dangerous. And the processes that trigger war are always unpredictable,” said Mermier.

“So far the Houthis have struck without attracting massive retaliation, but it can get out of hand,” added Mermier.

Lons said that so far Iran has demonstrated it has no interest in letting the situation escalate regionally.

“However, Tehran has less leverage over groups like the Houthis,” added Lons.

Noam Raydan, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in a note to clients that since the capture of the Galaxy Leader some companies have been re-routing their ships around the Cape of Good Hope, opting for a longer and costlier route.

“The risk of major disruption to global trade will remain high as long as commercial ships operated by various nationalities are being targeted,” she said.

PORT SUDAN, Sudan — The World Food Programme warned on Wednesday that Sudan faces a “hunger catastrophe” if it cannot deliver regular food aid there, eight months after fighting erupted between rival generals.

“Parts of war-ravaged Sudan are at a high risk of slipping into catastrophic hunger conditions by next year’s lean season,” the WFP said in a statement.

It said this could happen if the UN agency is unable to expand access and deliver regular food assistance to people trapped in conflict hotspots including the capital Khartoum.

On April 15, army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), turned their guns on each other.

Two years after the former allies jointly engineered a 2021 coup that derailed a fragile democratic transition, their power struggle has killed more than 12,190 people, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

The United Nations has recorded seven million people displaced across Sudan, which, combined with the lack of good harvests, means hunger stalks large parts of the African country.

The vast Darfur region in the west and Kordofan in the south, as well as the capital Khartoum, where the conflict first erupted, are at risk.

“Nearly 18 million people across Sudan are facing acute hunger... more than double the number at the same time a year ago,” the WFP said on Wednesday.

A new food analysis for Sudan, “once described as East Africa’s future breadbasket”, the statement said, “shows the highest levels of hunger ever recorded during the harvest season [October through February], typically a period where more food is available”.

On Sunday, the head of the UN’s humanitarian response in Sudan told AFP the world body had been able to reach only a fraction of the nearly 25 million people needing aid.

But assistance to even those four million could soon stop if the chronic lack of funding continues, Clementine Nkweta-Salami said in an interview.

WFP Country Director and Representative in Sudan Eddie Rowe said on Wednesday it was urgently calling “on all parties to the conflict for a humanitarian pause and unfettered access to avert a hunger catastrophe”.

However, getting the warring parties to negotiate remains difficult and both sides have been blamed for breaking truces agreed in the past.

And on December 1, at the request of the Sudanese authorities, the UN Security Council ended the world body’s political mission in the country.

The United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan was put in place in 2020 to help support a move to democracy following the fall the previous year of veteran Islamist autocrat Omar Al-Bashir.

DUBAI — The world for the first time on Wednesday approved a call to transition away from fossil fuels as UN negotiations in Dubai tackled the top culprit behind climate change, but at-risk countries said far more action was needed.

After 13 days of talks and several sleepless nights in a country built on oil wealth, the Emirati president of the COP28 summit quickly banged a gavel to signal consensus among 194 countries and the European Union.

"You did step up, you showed flexibility, you put common interest ahead of self-interest," said COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber.

Describing the deal as bringing "transformational change", Jaber said: "We have helped restore faith and trust in multilateralism, and we have shown that humanity can come together."

EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra called the agreement "long, long overdue", saying it had taken nearly 30 years of climate meetings to "arrive at the beginning of the end of fossil fuels".

Toughening language from an earlier draft that was roundly denounced by environmentalists, the agreement calls for "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner".

It asks for greater action “in this critical decade” and recommits to no net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in hopes of meeting the increasingly elusive goal of checking warming at 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels.

The planet has already warmed by 1.2 degrees and scientists say 2023 was likely the warmest in 100,000 years, as storms, droughts and lethal wildfires expand around the world.

Islanders still alarmed 

John Silk, the negotiator from the Marshall Islands, had warned that the earlier draft marked a “death warrant” for his Pacific archipelago, which is just 2.1 metres above sea level.

Silk likened the final agreement to a “canoe with a weak and leaky hull, full of holes” but added: “We have to put it into the water because we have no other option.”

The small islands did not block the Dubai deal, but a representative from Samoa criticised the language as too weak after contending the group had not arrived yet in the room at Dubai’s sprawling Expo City when Jaber declared consensus.

“We have made an incremental advancement over business as usual when what we really needed is an exponential step change in our actions,” Samoan Chief Negotiator Anne Rasmussen said on behalf of the island nations, drawing a standing ovation and polite applause from Jaber.

US climate envoy John Kerry said that no side can ever achieve everything in negotiations and praised the deal as a sign a war-torn world can come together for the common good.

“I think everyone has to agree this is much stronger and clearer as a call on 1.5 than we have ever heard before, and it clearly reflects what the science says,” Kerry said.

Seeking to avoid the geopolitical tensions that have strained cooperation on other issues, Kerry met ahead of COP28 with his counterpart from China, leading to a joint call by the world’s two largest emitters to step up renewable energy.

A Chinese envoy said on Wednesday that wealthy nations must still do more to help the developing world, a stance shared by Brazil, which will hold the 2025 climate talks in the Amazon.

But the Dubai summit at its opening reached an agreement on another major part of the accord, setting up a loss and damage fund to compensate countries hit hard by climate change.

‘Elephant in room’ 

The text stopped short of backing appeals during the summit for a “phase-out” of oil, gas and coal, which together account for around three-quarters of the emissions responsible for the planetary crisis.

Environmentalists virtually all saw the agreement as a step forward, although many cautioned that there will still far more to do.

“We are finally naming the elephant in the room. The genie is never going back into the bottle and future COPs will only turn the screws even more on dirty energy,” said Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa think tank, referring to the annual UN climate meetings known as Conferences of the Parties.

“Some people may have had their expectations for this meeting raised too high, but this result would have been unheard of two years ago, especially at a COP meeting in a petrostate,” he said.

The agreement also made more explicit the near-term goals in the goal of ending net emissions by 2050.

It called for the world to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 compared with 2019 levels.

But Jean Su of the Centre for Biological Diversity, while seeing progress, said there were still “cavernous loopholes” including recognition of a role for “transitional fuels”, seen as code for natural gas.

The agreement tackles only fossil use in energy, not in industrial areas such as production of plastics and fertiliser.

The deal backs a phase-down of “unabated” coal power, meaning it preserves a role for the dirty but politically sensitive energy source if there is use of carbon capture technology, panned by many environmentalists as unproven.

WASHINGTON — The Hamas-Israel war in Gaza is having a severe impact on the Palestinian economy, the World Bank said on Tuesday, adding that a sharp economic contraction is likely this year and next.

"The loss of life, speed and extent of damages to fixed assets and reduction in income flows across the Palestinian territories are unparalleled," the World Bank said in a statement.

The conflict, now dragging into its third month, has resulted in the death of more than 18,400 people in Gaza, the majority of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The UN estimates 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced by the war, half of them children.

UN agencies and aid groups fear the Palestinian territory will soon be overwhelmed by starvation and disease, and are pleading with Israel to boost efforts to protect civilians.

In a new analysis published on Tuesday, the World Bank estimated that, as of mid-November, around 60 per cent of information and communication infrastructure as well as health and education facilities had been damaged or destroyed.

And 70 per cent of commerce-related infrastructure had been crippled or ruined.

Almost half of all primary, secondary and tertiary roads were also damaged or destroyed, and more than half a million people were living without a home due to the conflict.

Beyond the immediate human cost, the Hamas-Israel  conflict has also “severely impacted the Palestinian economy”, the World Bank said.

Gaza’s contribution to the overall Palestinian economy, which includes the West Bank, had already shrunk from around 36 per cent in 2005 to just 17 per cent last year, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

The Hamas-Israel war has pushed Gaza’s unemployment rate up to around 85 per cent, while its decision to shut the door to Palestinian workers from the West Bank has put almost 200,000 people out of work.

Despite Gaza’s small contribution to the economic figures, the World Bank now expects the overall Palestinian economy to contract by 3.7 per cent this year, down sharply from its pre-war forecast of a 3.2 per cent increase.

Next year, the situation is expected to be even worse.

Whereas the World Bank previously anticipated growth of 3 per cent in 2024, it now expects an overall contraction of 6 per cent — on the assumption that the severity of the conflict decreases next year.

If the war drags on, the economic impact could deteriorate further.

Surge in Gaza inflation 

Following the onset of the war, prices in Gaza jumped by 12 per cent, on average, in October, the Bank said, reflecting “pent-up demand for products that are increasingly difficult to find on the local markets”. 

By contrast, consumer inflation in the West Bank rose by just 0.1 per cent over the same period.

In response to the conflict, the World Bank unveiled financial support on Tuesday to provide “emergency relief for the affected people of Gaza”.

The development lender announced an additional $20 million in funds for medical care, humanitarian needs, and financing for food vouchers and parcels in the besieged Palestinian territory.

This comes on top of the $15 million it has already delivered, it added.

DUBAI/WASHINGTON — Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a missile strike on a Norwegian-flagged tanker a day earlier off Yemen's coast in the Red Sea.

"The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a qualitative military operation against the Norwegian ship Strinda, which was loaded with oil" bound for Israel, military spokesman Yahya Saree said.

The Strinda "reported damage causing a fire on-board, but no casualties at this time", CENTCOM said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, adding that a US Navy destroyer had heard the ship's mayday call and was giving assistance.

The night-time attack occurred as the chemical tanker passed through the Bab-el-Mandeb, the strait between Yemen and northeast Africa. The strait leads to the Red Sea, a key route toward the Suez Canal.

The Houthis, who control much of Yemen and are part of an "axis of resistance" arrayed against Israel, have launched a series of drones and missiles since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza more than two months ago.

In a statement posted on Saturday on social media, the Houthis said they “will prevent the passage of ships heading to the Zionist entity” if food and medicine are not allowed into besieged, Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Regardless of which flag ships sail under or the nationality of their owners or operators, Israel-bound vessels “will become a legitimate target for our armed forces”, the statement said.

US and French warships patrolling the Red Sea have shot down Houthi missiles and drones several times since the militants began the attacks.

A French frigate shot down two drones over the weekend using short- to medium-range surface-to-air missiles, a military source told AFP, asking not to be named.

A British warship is also part of the coalition efforts to protect shipping.

Yemen has a long coastline along the Gulf of Aden and the southern Red Sea, a strategic waterway to Israel in the north.

In a helicopter assault, the Houthis captured a commercial car carrier, the Galaxy Leader, on November 19 and forced it to the Hodeidah Port in Yemen, where it has remained. The ship was reportedly empty at the time.

Armed attackers seized another vessel, the M/V Central Park, on November 26 off the coast of Yemen but were apprehended when the USS Mason destroyer arrived on the scene.

The USS Mason shot down an air drone last week when the unmanned vehicle was headed near the ship, US officials said. Its intended target was unknown.

The Strinda, a 144 metre tanker, was built in 2006 and was sailing toward the Suez Canal at the time of the attack.

The vessel is owned by Mowinckel Chemical Tankers AS, a company headquartered in Bergen, Norway.

BEIRUT — Israeli strikes overnight near Damascus killed two Hizbollah fighters and two Syrians working with the Lebanese group, a war monitor said on Monday.

Two Hizbollah sites in the Sayyida Zeinab district south of the capital and "a radar battalion" near the airport were targeted late Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"Two Lebanese Hizbollah fighters and two Syrian guards" working at one of the Iran-backed movement's sites were killed, while three other fighters and three civilians were wounded, added the Britain-based observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

Hizbollah issued statements on Monday announcing the death of two of its fighters, without specifying where or when it happened.

But a source close to Hizbollah, requesting anonymity, told AFP the pair were killed in Syria.

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbour since Syria’s civil war began in 2011, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces including Hizbollah fighters, as well as Syrian army positions.

Earlier the Syrian state news agency SANA, citing a military source, reported that Israel launched an air assault at around 2005 GMT targeting “various points on the outskirts of Damascus”.

“Our anti-aircraft defences shot down some missiles while others caused limited material damage,” it said.

An AFP correspondent reported strong explosions in the Damascus suburbs.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes targeting Syria, but it has repeatedly said it will not allow arch-foe Iran, which backs Assad, to expand its presence there.

Three Hizbollah fighters and a Syrian were killed on Friday in an Israeli drone strike on their car in southern Syria, the observatory had said.

Damascus’s international airport is currently out of service after successive Israeli strikes targeted the facility.