The heavy retaliation by the United States, backed by the United Kingdom, on Thursday, January 11, and Friday, January 12, against the Yemeni militiamen behind the multiple attacks in the Red Sea was probably inevitable. Firmly entrenched in Sanaa, the Houthi movement had justified the attacks in the name of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, while Israel's devastating assault on Gaza following the unprecedented massacres of Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7 entered its fourth month.
According to the forces behind them, these attacks were aimed solely at cargo ships bound for Israel, starting with the Israeli port of Eilat, linked to the Red Sea by the Straits of Tiran. There would be disastrous consequences on a global scale if they ended up preventing all shipping on this vital route.
This threat nevertheless forces the United States into a form of geopolitical balancing act. By massively shelling Houthi positions, despite the militia's proven resilience in the past, Washington is fuelling a rhetoric that, since the emergence of this rebellion against the power of former president Ali Abdallah Saleh (1990-2012) more than 20 years ago, has denounced its role in the region, as well as that of Israel. By recognizing the regional nuisance potential of a movement hitherto confined to the highly complex Yemeni arena, the United States is playing into the hands of the Houthi leaders, who can also use this confrontation to justify their iron grip on the territories they control.
The United States' difficulty in setting up a naval force to prevent these attacks (France, incidentally, did not take part in the response on Thursday and Friday) bears witness to the existing obstacles. The embarrassment of the neighboring countries, starting with Saudi Arabia, reflects the fear of an escalation that would only result in losers. After years of being bogged down militarily in Yemen, with American support, at the initiative of Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Salman, following his appointment in 2015 as Defence Minister, Riyadh is only thinking of reaching a truce as a prelude to disengagement.
Humanitarian disaster in Yemen
This still-fragile prospect has been the subject of difficult negotiations, suspended for the time being, with both those that control Sanaa and the internationally recognized government of Yemen, supported at arm's length by the Saudis. Any slippage would also serve the interests of Iran, which militarily supports the Houthi movement, which is itself part of a Shiite Islamic current, being ideologically close to Tehran.
Plunged for more than a decade into a civil war that has created a humanitarian catastrophe from which the country, one of the poorest in the world, will have difficulty recovering for a long time to come, the Yemenis themselves would not be spared by an interruption to navigation in the Red Sea. The food aid on which they depend transits through the port of Hodeïda, which is held by the Houthis and overlooks these waters.
These tensions highlight a regional instability that the war in Gaza has exacerbated tenfold. This fact, combined with the most elementary humanitarian considerations, forcefully calls for an end to the fighting. It is making the narrow strip of land unliveable, not just for Hamas leaders, but for all Palestinian civilians trapped by the war.