The United States-led airstrikes on Thursday and Friday against sites in Yemen controlled by the Houthi militia damaged or destroyed about 90 percent of the targets struck, but the group retained about three-quarters of its ability to fire missiles and drones at ships transiting the Red Sea, two U.S. officials said on Saturday.
www.nytimes.com/2024/01/13/us/politics/houthis-yemen-us-airstrikes.html
The United States-led airstrikes on Thursday and Friday against sites in Yemen controlled by the Houthi militia damaged or destroyed about 90 percent of the targets struck, but the group retained about three-quarters of its ability to fire missiles and drones at ships transiting the Red Sea, two U.S. officials said on Saturday.
Finding Houthi targets is proving to be more challenging than anticipated. American and other Western intelligence agencies have not spent significant time or resources in recent years collecting data on the location of Houthi air defenses, command hubs, munitions depots and storage and production facilities for drones and missiles, the officials said. (Note: what the f are they doing?)
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 American airstrikes and a senior U.N. official warned that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was hurtling toward famine.
Yemeni analysts say the crisis also presents the Houthis with a welcome distractionfrom rising criticism at home
Some 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. (Aid from where?)
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 United Nations-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.
Large protests calling for an end to the Israeli assault on Gaza, tied to the 100th day of the war, were expected across the globe on Saturday in cities including London, Dublin, Washington, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.
Since 2014 the Houthis have endured heavy bombardment by Saudi warplanes armed by the United States, only to emerge as the de facto government in northern Yemen.
A confrontation with the United States strengthens the Houthis’ ties to Iran, plays to popular sympathies with Palestinians and could help to quell dissent, experts say: As a shaky peace has taken root in Yemen in the past 18 months, their economic failures have become more evident, and internal opposition has grown.
“War is good for the Houthis right now,” said Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
The C.I.A. is collecting information on senior Hamas leaders and the location of hostages in Gaza, and is providing that intelligence to Israel as it carries out its war in the enclave, according to U.S. officials.
It is not clear how valuable the information has been to Israel, though none of the most senior leaders of Hamas has been captured or killed. The United States is not providing Israel with intelligence on low or midlevel Hamas operatives.
Israel had estimated before Oct. 7 that Hamas had 20,000 to 25,000 fighters. By the end of 2023, Israel had told American officials they believed they had killed roughly a third of that force.
Some American officials believe targeting low-level Hamas members is misguided because they can be easily replaced and because of the unwarranted risk to civilians. They have also said the Israeli military bombing campaign in Gaza — which according to Gaza’s Health Ministry has killed some 23,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians — could end up replenishing Hamas’s bench of fighters.
Targeting Mr. Sinwar is not simply a matter of finding him. Mr. Sinwar is believed to be hiding in the deepest part of the tunnel network under Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to U.S. officials. But he is also believed to be surrounded by hostages and using them as human shields, vastly complicating a military operation to capture or kill him.
In 2022, Israel collected intelligence that showed Hamas had developed an elaborate plan for a multiwave attack on Israel, code named Jericho Wall. But the information was not shared widely within Israel or with the United States after some Israeli intelligence officials assessed that the plan was aspirational and that Hamas did not have the capability of carrying it out at the time.
Locating the hostages, and developing information about their physical and mental conditions, is also a priority of the new task force. William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, has been working with David Barnea, the chief of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, to negotiate their release.
In November, 109 hostages were released in return for Palestinian prisoners and a pause in the fighting thanks to U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediation. About 130 hostages are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza. The United States and Israel are hoping for another exchange, but Hamas has insisted that any further hostage releases only
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