How many countries has Israel attacked in 2025?

Hanna Duggal | Al-Jazeera

Israel has attacked more countries than any other country this year.

In 2025, Israel attacked at least six countries, including Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, and Yemen.

It also carried out strikes in Tunisian, Maltese and Greek territorial waters on aid flotillas heading for Gaza.

According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), an independent conflict monitor, from January 1 to December 5, Israel carried out at least 10,631 attacks, marking one of the broadest geographic military offensives in a single year. [...]

According to ACLED, in 2025, up to December 5, 2025, Israel attacked:

• Gaza and the occupied West Bank 8,332 times
• Lebanon 1,653 times
• Iran 379 times
• Syria 207 times
• Yemen 48 times
• Qatar once
• Tunisian waters twice, Maltese and Greek waters once each

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Israel has attacked six countries in the past 72 hours

Al Jazeera | Marium Ali and Alia Chughtai

In just three days, Israel has carried out strikes in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Qatar and Yemen.

 

On Tuesday, Israel launched a targeted air strike on a Hamas leadership compound in Qatar's capital, Doha, during a meeting to discuss a US-proposed ceasefire for Gaza.

The strike killed six people, including the son of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, the director of al-Hayya's office, three bodyguards and a Qatari security officer. However, its top leaders are reported to have survived the attack.

The attack was part of a wider wave of Israeli strikes extending beyond its immediate borders, and marked the sixth country attacked in just 72 hours and the seventh since the start of this year. 

Israel continues to bombard Gaza

Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 150 people and injured more than 540 others since Monday.

On Monday, 67 people were killed and hospitals received 320 wounded, including 14 people killed while seeking aid, while six people - among them two children - died from famine-related causes. On Tuesday, another 83 people were killed and 223 were injured.

Israel is continuing its assault on Gaza City, targeting high-rise buildings, destroying infrastructure, and forcing residents from their homes, leaving many with nowhere safe to seek shelter.

Since its onset in October 2023, Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 64,656 people, [a far more probable figure is at least half a million] including at least 404 who have died of starvation. Thousands more have been lost under the rubble and are believed to be dead. 

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Trump official to The Grayzone: CIA’s Ratcliffe acts as ‘Mossad stenographer’ on Iran

The Gray Zone | Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil

A Trump official tells The Grayzone that Israel’s Mossad is using CIA Director John Ratcliffe and US CENTCOM’s Gen. Michael Kurilla to influence Trump with cooked intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program. Inside the White House, dissenters have been isolated, setting the stage for a regime change war that could cost American lives.

An official in the administration of President Donald Trump has told The Grayzone that CIA Director John Ratcliffe and US CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Kurilla have become vehicles for Israel’s Mossad and military as they seek to manipulate the US into attacking Iran. The Trump official referred to Ratcliffe as “Mossad’s stenographer.”

According to the official, Ratcliffe and Kurilla have pressured Trump to join Israel’s war more directly by regurgitating overblown briefings they received from the Israeli military and Mossad director David Barnea – but without informing the president that the intelligence was derived from a foreign third party.

During the Trump administration’s meetings with Israeli intelligence officials including Barnea, the official said the Israelis have demonstrated a single-minded focus on regime change, clamoring for authorization to assassinate Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Israeli officials have emphasized that the moment to take out Khamenei is now.

The issue of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity is of secondary concern in the Israelis’ presentations, which the official characterized as tactless, hyper-aggressive exercises in fear-mongering. At one point, the Trump official recalled, an Israeli intelligence briefer declared that Iran could transfer a nuclear weapon to Yemen’s Houthi militia in less than a week.

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The Yemen Tragedy Further Fueled by the West and Its Allies

Viktor Mikhin
New Eastern Outlook

A most sophisticated demagogy, blatant falsifying of facts, impudent interpretation of events with everything going upside down, these are the thoughts that come to one’s mind when one reads another forgery concocted in the West. We mean the statement addressed to Iran calling for the termination of the actions which are allegedly destabilizing the situation in the Persian Gulf. The statement was made by the governments of the US, the UK and their satellites: the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, on June 24, as reported by the US Department of State press service. In this manifesto, contrary to the obvious facts, the signatories held Iran responsible for the escalation of the situation in Yemen and the attacks on the oil tankers on May 12 and June 13, urging the Islamic Republic to start searching for a diplomatic solution. The intensity of this demagogy, as the saying goes, is beyond the scale.

Let us however, in a quiet fashion and on the basis of the obvious facts, consider the situation in the Persian Gulf area and ask several questions. Did Iran or the poor Yemen suffering a score of internal problems, indeed attack Saudi Arabia? Did the Houthis indeed create a so-called Arab coalition which has consistently bombed the Saudi cities and villages killing the civilians? By no means. It was the Saudis, namely the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud who took up the foreign policy responsibilities due to the old age and numerous diseases of his father, the King, and who gave the order sanctioning the rough intervention of Riyadh in internal affairs of the neighboring state of Yemen and the total bombing of the Yemen cities.

The leader of the Houthis and the President of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee (SRC) Mohammed Ali al-Houthi demanded the UN Secretary General to condemn the war crimes committed in Yemen. Among the crimes perpetrated by the coalition of the Arab countries (led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the countries of the West), the Houthi leader named the ruthless blockade of the Yemen people, the famine in the country, the ongoing air embargo, the blockade of the Red Sea ports, the mass murders (including those of children), the destruction of civil facilities targeted during the military attacks.

The UN strongly condemned the following Saudi air raid on the Yemen capital city of Sanaa which resulted in the death of many civilians, including five children; dozens of people were wounded. The head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Henrietta Holsman Fore, speaking at the UN Security Council session, urged the international community to save the lives of the millions of Yemenite children. She emphasized that, since the beginning of the conflict in the country, according to official figures only, up to 10,000 children had been killed or wounded. According to the UN, the Saudi Air Force “aimed at the civilians systematically,” dropping bombs on hospitals, schools, weddings, funeral processions and even on the camps for the displaced persons escaping from bombing.

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‘Irrational & unlawful’: UK govt dealt landmark defeat over arms sales to Saudi Arabia

RT

In a legal challenge brought by anti-arms trade campaigners, three of the UK’s top judges concluded that it was “irrational and unlawful” of the government to allow arms sales to Saudi Arabia without making proper checks. 

The UK Court of Appeal has ruled that the British government has “made no attempt” to assess whether Riyadh had breached international humanitarian law in the Yemen war.

… the process of decision-making by the Government was wrong in law in one significant respect.

However, the judges said that their ruling does not mean that UK arms export licences to Saudi Arabia have to be suspended immediately.

See also: UK report on ‘human rights’ forgets to mention Saudi Arabia in section on Yemen war

'American Taliban' Getting Out Of Prison Early; Slain CIA Officer's Father, Senators, Demand Answers

Zero Hedge

John Walker Lindh, the so-called 'American Taliban', is being let out of federal prison over three years ahead of schedule, and people want to know why. 

Lindh converted to Sunni Islam at age 16 after dropping out of school and becoming obsessed with hip-hop and the movie Malcom X (he pretended to be a black rapper online and criticized others for "acting black"). Shortly after his father left his mother for another man, the culturally appropriating Lindh began to attend San Francisco Bay Area mosques. 

After a 10-month trip to Yemen in 1998 to study the Qur'an, Lindh returned home for eight months, only to return to the Middle East - eventually winding up in Afghanistan to take up arms against Northern Alliance fighters in May, 2001.

He was captured on November 25, 2001 and held at an a makeshift prison in Afghanistan, where he would participate in an extremely violent prisoner uprising (the battle of Qala-i-Jangi) that led to the death of CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann and hundreds of foreign fighters. Lindh was one of 86 prisoners who survived after hiding in a basement with a group of detainees who shot at Red Cross workers sent in to collect the dead, killing one. 

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Will the US ever be held accountable for its war crimes?

Jean Perier
New Eastern Outlook

For more than a decade, the United States has been steadily increasing the scale of its illegal military operations across the Middle East, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.

Eighteen years ago, the US invaded Afghanistan under the pretext of ousting the Taliban who allegedly granted sanctuary to Al-Qaeda. According to a study released by Brown University, more than 140,000 Afghan militants and civilians have died in the fight.

Since December 2001, the United States has been conducting various operations in Somali, and even today the Pentagon carries out both air strikes and ground operations, accompanied by a constant toll of civilian lives.

Back in 2003, Washington launched Operation Iraq Freedom to strip Saddam Hussein of WMDs he didn't even have and to convert Iraq into a «democracy», plunging this country into a state of perpetual chaos guaranteeing that it will remain a Western bastion in the Arab and Islamic World for years to come.

Eight years ago, the US succeeded in destabilizing Libya, when US warplanes attacked the troops of Libya's most successful ruler to date - Muammar Gaddafi. Back then, Washington took every step to ensure his government would be ousted and and its key leaders murdered. The Libyan conflict has since produced tens of thousands of dead. In 2016, Barack Obama said that Libya was probably the "worst mistake" of his presidency.

The seven years of war in Syria resulted in a death toll of half a million Syrian nationals. Here, American troops are stationed illegally to fight ISIS and "indigenous ground forces." The strange wording that Washington uses in its official rhetoric is no coincidence, since more than on one occasion US armed forces have opened fire on both Syrian government troops and civilians, with no official rationale ever being given to explain this brutality.

In Yemen, the United States has been backing Saudi Arabia's efforts to put an end to the Houthi rebellion for three years. Washington carries on supplying Saudi authorities with high-precision weapons, combat aircraft and intelligence. This war has already triggered the largest humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century, with 20 million people finding themselves on the brink of starvation. 

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Jeremy Hunt is lying about Britain’s role in Yemen

Stop The War Coalition

In a recent Politico article Jeremy Hunt, foreign secretary, has defended the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and The UAE. Arms that are often used in perpetuating Yemen’s civil war. Hunt claims the UK-Saudi relationship ‘Helps us influence their leaders’ toward peaceful resolution. In reality, Britain’s supply of arms only feeds the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The multi Billion pound Al Yamamah (The Dove) arms deal provides Saudi Arabia with 25% of its arms imports for use fighting Houthi forces in Yemen. As the second largest arms supplier to the Saudi led coalition Britain is culpable in its infamous war crimes. Such atrocities have included bombing a wedding party killing 20 civilians; bombing a funeral killing 140 civilians and wounding 600 more; and even an air attack on a school bus leaving 40 Yemeni children dead. British firm BAE systems provides the typhoon jets used for this type of air to surface attacks. No wonder that the UK wouldn’t back a UN investigation into Saudi war crimes.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis have been killed in the conflict, and millions more displaced. Combined with mass starvation and a cholera epidemic Yemen is now the site of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. 

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UK special forces injured in ‘top secret’ Yemen campaign

Middle Eastern Monitor

At least five British Special Forces commandos have been wounded in gun battles as part of a top-secret UK military campaign in Yemen. The troops are all said to be members of the Special Boat Service (SBS), the Royal Navy’s equivalent of the British Army’s SAS, which recruits mainly from the Royal Marines. The SBS specialises in “mounting clandestine operations against targets at sea, in rivers or harbours and against occupied coastlines”, says the Armed Forces website.

As the UK Government welcomes the Saudi Crown Prince’s first official visit to London, Save the Children has unveiled a life-size statue of a child outside Parliament. The bronze-like statue is a reminder of the dangers that Yemeni children face every day and the risks of British-made bombs fuelling the violence [Save The Children]

The men, who are understood to be now recovering in the UK, were injured during a “top-secret” military campaign, according to the Mail on Sunday. They were treated for leg and arm wounds following battles in the Saada area of northern Yemen, where up to 30 British troops are based.

The Mail on Sunday also revealed how RAF engineers sent to Saudi Arabia to repair the kingdom’s fleet of military aircrafts narrowly escaped death last week. Iranian-backed rebels are reported to have launched a “suicide drone” strike on the King Khalid airbase, where they are maintaining Tornado jets used to bomb civilian areas in Yemen.

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Saudi Arabia Has Become the World’s Top Arms Buyer

ANTIWAR.COM 

Most reports on international arms sales focus on the biggest sellers. That inevitably means the United States, the largest exporter by far in the growing market. You can’t have sales without buyers, however, and that side of the equation centers heavily on the Middle East.

Middle Eastern countries now buy more than a third of all global arms. The biggest customer not just in the Middle East but in the world, is Saudi Arabia, whose purchases have soared 192% over a five year period.

Locked in an endless war in Yemen, and always looking toward a war with Iran, Saudi Arabia has seen its military spending soar in recent years. Recent estimates have put Saudi Arabia at the third costliest military on Earth, behind on the US and China, and ahead of Russia.

Unlike the US, China, or Russia, however, Saudi Arabia lacks a huge decades-old military-industrial complex to make all their weapons of war. Instead, the Saudis are pouring into overseas contracts, buying vast amounts of arms from the US and Britain.

The Saudis show no sign of slowing down on this, but it isn’t clear how sustainable this is either. Already, Saudi war crimes are fueling a lot of calls to rethink arms sales to them. 

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Escobar: Are The Neocons Ready For Their Tropical Vietnam?

Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture Foundation

Cold War 2.0 has hit South America with a bang – pitting the US and expected minions against the four key pillars of in-progress Eurasia integration: Russia, China, Iran and Turkey.

It’s the oil, stupid. But there’s way more than meets the (oily) eye. 

Caracas has committed the ultimate cardinal sin in the eyes of Exceptionalistan; oil trading bypassing the US dollar or US-controlled exchanges.

Remember Iraq. Remember Libya. Yet Iran is also doing it. Turkey is doing it. Russia is – partially – on the way. And China will eventually trade all its energy in petroyuan.

With Venezuela adopting the petro crypto-currency and the sovereign bolivar, already last year the Trump administration had sanctioned Caracas off the international financial system.

No wonder Caracas is supported by China, Russia and Iran. They are the real hardcore troika – not psycho-killer John Bolton’s cartoonish “troika of tyranny” – fighting against the Trump administration’s energy dominance strategy, which consists essentially in aiming at the total lock down of oil trading in petrodollars, forever.

Venezuela is a key cog in the machine. Psycho killer Bolton admitted it on the record; “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” It’s not a matter of just letting ExxonMobil take over Venezuela’s massive oil reserves – the largest on the planet. The key is to monopolize their exploitation in US dollars, benefitting a few Big Oil billionaires.

Once again, the curse of natural resources is in play. Venezuela must not be allowed to profit from its wealth on its own terms; thus, Exceptionalistan has ruled that the Venezuelan state must be shattered.

In the end, this is all about economic war. Cue to the US Treasury Department imposing new sanctions on PDVSA that amount to a de facto oil embargo against Venezuela. 

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UK councils invest £566m in arms firms linked to Yemen war

theguardian.com

More than half a billion pounds of council workers’ pension money has been directly invested by local authorities in arms companies implicated in Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen, in which thousands of civilians have been killed.

Council pension funds have sizeable shareholdings in BAE Systems, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, according to nearly 100 freedom of information requests.

Between them, 43 pension funds directly hold shares worth £566m in the five companies and earned more than £18.5m in dividends in 2018, a period in which civilian deaths reportedly surged and a punishing famine took hold.

The councils also hold hundreds of millions of pounds in shares in the five companies via pooled investments, which they do not control directly.

The holdings mean thousands of local authority staff will have their retirement payouts part-funded by the companies, some of which manufacture arms linked to incidents in which civilians and children were killed.

The Guardian gathered the data through the freedom of information website 
WhatDoTheyKnow.com.

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NGO’s Warn That Half The Population Of Yemen Is On Brink Of Famine

NWO Report

Thirty-five non-governmental organization have demanded an immediate end to hostilities in Yemen, warning that the Saudi-led coalition’s war against the country has put 14 million people on the verge of famine.

The UN has also warned that Yemen is on brink of ‘world’s worst famine in 100 years‘ if airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition continued.

In a statement on Wednesday both Yemeni and international NGO’s said : “With 14 million men, women and children on the brink of famine – half of the country’s population – there has never been a more urgent time to act”

Press TV reports: The statement also called on the world to “secure an immediate cessation of hostilities” and “suspend the supply of arms at risk of being used in Yemen”.

“We call on governments to redouble their efforts to guarantee unimpeded access to essential items… including through the lifeline port of Hudaydah, where civilians have been caught in renewed fighting over the past few days.”

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is manmade and a direct consequence of the severe restrictions on access to food, fuel, medical imports and humanitarian aid, it added.

The appeal was signed by Oxfam, Action Against Hunger, Doctors of the World, the International Federation for Human Rights, CARE International, and Yemeni organizations.

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi movement and reinstate former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.

One of the principle targets of the Saudi strikes is Hudaydah port, where the World Food Programme is finding it hard or impossible to access desperately-needed wheat stocks. Yemen is heavily dependent on food imports and the deadly ground and aerial attacks by the Riyadh regime and its allies are directly adding to the risk of starvation on a massive scale.

According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

Saudi Arabia Issues Royal Pardon for Everything Soldiers Have Done in Yemen

Jason Ditz
Anti-War

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia announced that it is issuing a royal pardon for any and all Saudi troops engaged in the war in Yemen, covering all crimes related to violating military rules and discipline. They said this is to show appreciation for the “heroics” of the invading forces.

The Saudi invasion of Yemen has been widely controversial internationally. Saudi airstrikes have killed massive numbers of Yemeni civilians, and the war has also caused a famine, and the largest cholera epidemic in human history.

Faced with UN criticism, Saudi officials heavily resisted allegations of wrongdoing, and ultimately got the UN to agree that Saudi Arabia would be allowed to investigate its own forces, and police themselves. This pardon shows none of that is going to matter.

It is unclear what prompted the pardon to be offered no, as the war shows no sign of ending, and there is no suggestion from official reports that the Saudis had punished any of their troops more than nominally for war crimes in the first place.

Yemen’s Houthis Down Saudi Jet as It Returned From a Bombing Run

Mint Press News

On Thursday morning, Yemen’s Air Defense Force shot down an aircraft belonging to the Saudi-led coalition with a surface-to-air missile after it took part in airstrikes against residential villages in northern Saada. The Saudi-led coalition confirmed that it lost a Tornado fighter jet, but claims the aircraft fell due to a technical issue and that the pilot survived the crash.

A Yemeni military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told MintPress that the fighter jet was targeted after it launched airstrikes against residential villages in the Alaf district in Yemen`s northwestern province of Saada.

The incident was reported on the Yemeni Army’s official website, September 26th. A statement on the site read, “The hostile plane fell after returning from carrying out hostile missions in Saada province,” but gave no further details.

This is not the first time Yemen’s military has successfully downed a coalition aircraft. In fact, Yemeni forces have successfully shot down high-tech coalition aircraft on several occasions.

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THE FORGOTTEN WAR: “Nowhere to Run”: Chaotic Exodus as Yemenis Flee Saudi-UAE Bombardment of Hodeida

 A Yemeni mother and her children, displaced by a deadly Saudi, UAE invasion, sit in a school allocated for IDPs in Sanaa, Yemen, Jun. 23, 2018. Hani Mohammed | AP

Ahmed Abdulkareem
Mint Press News

Thousands of Yemenis have fled the port city of Hodeida amid a deadly Saudi/UAE invasion causing a mass exodus of internally displaced people in the already war

HODEIDA, YEMEN — Mohammed Mousa, 31, has sharp wide eyes. Enthusiastic and angry, he shouts slogans against Yemen’s latest invaders while in the midst of a huge rally in Hodeida. Mousa was one of the thousands of Yemeni residents of the Tihamah region to take to the streets on Friday to protest the U.S.-backed Saudi coalition’s assault on their city. Carrying banners, Kalashnikovs, and Yemeni flags, they chanted lyrics from Yemen’s national anthem “my heartbeat shall remain that of a Yemeni … no foreigner shall ever hold dominion over Yemen.”

The protesters hold the United States responsible for crimes committed in the war and for the consequences of the U.S.-backed Saudi-coalition blockade, welcoming fighters from across Yemen who have descended upon Hodeida to help in the defense of their city. They also condemn the United Nations for its inaction, calling on it to shoulder its responsibility to protect civilians and to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Mousa, who lives only 300 meters from the embattled Hodeida airport, is one the many residents of Tihamah who fled home days ago. Family in tow, he walked six kilometers, hiding behind walls and under trees to avoid Saudi airstrikes before finding shelter at a school inside the city.

“They told us that buses could not come in or out so we started walking, carrying our children and stopping every once in a while to rest while Apaches hovered above,” Mousa told MintPress. “We were scared; we saw dead bodies in al-Gharasi.” Six civilians, including four women, had been killed by an airstrike that targeted a bus full of displaced residents near al-Gharasi earlier that week.

“Now we’re in this school, no mattresses, no electricity, no water, no bathrooms, nothing, and we have children who need food and medicine” Mousa said, sitting on the floor of an empty classroom housing those displaced by Saudi and UAE attacks. Dozens of families have sought shelter in local schools, unable to secure assistance elsewhere thanks to a coalition blockade of the city’s port, the sole entry point for up to 80 percent of the country’s humanitarian aid. 

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Yemen is currently facing the largest documented cholera epidemic in modern times. A new report warns it could get worse

Alanna Shaikh
UN Dispatch

From fall 2016 to spring 2018, more than a million suspected cases of cholera were reported in Yemen –  a country of not quite 30 million people. The rate of new infections has finally slowed, but a new study from MSF/Doctors Without Borders, published in The Lancet looks at the patterns of cholera outbreak.

The takeaway: cholera will be back – and worse – when the rainy season returns, unless we take action now.

Cholera is one of those infectious diseases that has been killing people since ancient times. A bacterial infection, it causes severe diarrhea which leads to dehydration and often death. Cholera is a virulent infection; it can kill within hours of onset.

The cholera bacteria, v. cholerae, spreads through contaminated food or water. In places with safe drinking water, uncontaminated food, and effective sanitation systems for human waste, cholera is easily prevented. Cholera ripped through the United States from 1832-1873, for example, and was finally stopped through improving sanitation infrastructure.

In times of war and disaster, infrastructure is often the first to suffer. When sanitation fails, cholera rapidly follows. Cholera spreads easily in refugee camps, crowded cities, and anywhere people cluster together without a good way to dispose of human waste.

There is no cure or specific drug for cholera. It’s a bacterial infection, but antibiotics don’t make any difference to patient outcomes. Cholera is treated through rehydration therapy. In mild cases, that will consist of special rehydration liquids given by mouth. In more severe cases, intravenous liquids are required. With good care, though, cholera has a case fatality rate of only 1%. When untreated, the cholera fatality rate ranges from 25-50%. Cholera does have a vaccine, but it doesn’t take effect fast enough to be useful in an epidemic situation. The vaccine works best in populations who are at risk for cholera but not yet affected by an outbreak.

Cholera isn’t new to Yemen. Like many countries in the Middle East and South Asia, cholera has historically been endemic in Yemen. This kind out outbreak is new, though. Infectious disease modeling techniques estimate that until 2016, Yemen had approximately 17,546 cases of cholera per year and a case fatality rate of 3%. In 2011, the Yemeni revolution began and 30,000 cases of cholera were reported.

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Western Media Whitewash Yemen Genocide

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture

With the United Nations warning that millions of civilians could die from violence or starvation from the ongoing military siege of the Yemeni port city of Hodeida, there is no other way to describe what is happening except as “genocide”.

The more than three-year war on Yemen waged by a Western-backed Saudi coalition has been arguably genocidal from the outset, with up to eight million people facing imminent starvation due to the years-long blockade on the Arabian country, as well as from indiscriminate air strikes.

But the latest offensive on the Red Sea city of Hodeida threatens to turn the world’s already worst humanitarian disaster into a mass extermination.

Hodeida is the entry point for 90 per cent of all food and medical aid into Yemen. If the city’s port stops functioning from the military offensive – as UN aid agencies are warning – then an entire country population of more than 20 million will, as a result, be on the brink of death.

The Saudi coalition which includes Emirati forces and foreign mercenaries as well as remnants from the previous regime (which the Western media mendaciously refer to as “government forces”) is fully backed by the US, Britain and France. This coalition says that by taking Hodeida it will hasten the defeat of Houthi rebels. But to use the cutting off of food and other vital aid to civilian populations as a weapon is a blatant war crime. It is absolutely inexcusable.

This past week an emergency session at the UN Security Council made the lily-livered call for the port city to remain open. But it stopped short of demanding an end to the offensive being led by Saudi and Emirati forces against Hodeida, which is the second biggest stronghold for Houthi rebels after the capital Sanaa. The port city’s population of 600,000 is at risk from the heavy fighting underway, including air strikes and naval bombardment, even before food, water and medicines supply is halted.

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Yemen and The Militarization of Strategic Waterways

Prof. Michel Chossoudosvky
Global Research

This article was first published by GR in February 2010, five years prior to outbreak of the US-Saudi war on Yemen. 

The article sheds light on America’s unspoken military agenda: the control over strategic waterways  

***

“Whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean would be a prominent player on the international scene.” (US Navy Geostrategist Rear Admiral Alfred Thayus Mahan (1840-1914).

The Yemeni archipelago of Socotra in the Indian Ocean is located some 80 kilometres off the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres South of the Yemeni coastline. The islands of Socotra are a wildlife reserve recognized by (UNESCO), as a World Natural Heritage Site. 

Socotra is at the crossroads of the strategic naval waterways of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (See map below). It is of crucial importance to the US military.

MAP 1

Among Washington’s strategic objectives is the militarization of major sea ways. This strategic waterway links the Mediterranean to South Asia and the Far East, through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

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Yemen - U.S. Grants Approval For Genocide

Moon of Alabama

 

The genocide in Yemen is going to start tomorrow. Eight million are already on the brink of starvation. Eighteen out of twenty-six million Yemenis live in the mountainous heartlands (green) which are under control of the Houthi and their allies. They are surrounded by Saudi and U.A.E. forces and their mercenaries. There is little agriculture. The only supply line from the outside world will soon be cut off. The people will starve.

Even before the war Yemen imported 90% of its staple food. Three years of Saudi/UAE bombing have destroyed local infrastructure and production. The ongoing war has already caused mass starvation and the outbreak of a large cholera epidemic. The Yemeni coast is under blockade by Saudi and U.S. naval forces. The only supplies coming in are UN and commercial deliveries through the Red Sea Hodeidah port (Al Hudaydah on the map).

The United Arab Emirates is leading local mercenaries and Islamist gangs against the Houthi and their allies. During the last months these forces moved from the south along the coast up to Hodeidah. The fighting is fierce:

Heavy fighting in Yemen between pro-government forces and Shiite rebels has killed more than 600 people on both sides in recent days, security officials said Monday.

Tomorrow, when the media will be busy with the Kim-Trump photo-op summit, the UAE forces will launch their attack on the city.

The UN, which oversees the aid distribution through Hodeidah, tried to negotiate between the parties:

The U.N. special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, traveled to the U.A.E. capital over the weekend in an effort to forestall an attack. Mr. Griffiths had secured an agreement with Houthi rebels who control Hodeidah to allow the U.N. to operate the port jointly, the people said. But people briefed on the discussions said they doubted the U.A.E. would accept the offer or delay the planned assault.

The briefed people were right. The UN is now evacuating its staff:

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