A new year, 2024, in the Middle East has begun with even more massive bombing by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) of the Gaza Strip. The International Confederation of Independent NGO groups Oxfam (secretariat based in Nairobi, Kenya) estimates that 250 Palestinians are being killed per day, far exceeding the daily death toll in other conflicts in recent years.
According to the UN, as of 11 January, 23,469 people have been killed by the IDF in Gaza, 59064 wounded, 7,000 missing or buried under the rubble of buildings. Among the dead, 70 per cent are women and children. During this time, 332 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank.
From 1 to 11 January, only 21% of the planned supplies of food, medicine and water were delivered to Gaza. From 7 to 10 January, the Israelis refused to deliver emergency medicines to the central pharmacy in Gaza City, fuel to water and sanitation facilities in that city and in the north of the enclave. The remaining hospitals are unable to care for the wounded and sick. The number of patients with infectious diseases alone has passed 400,000.
At the same time, the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border deteriorated sharply. On 2 January, an Israeli drone strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut killed Saleh al-Arouri, a prominent Hamas functionary. On 8 January, Wissam al-Tawil, deputy head of Hezbollah’s special forces, was killed, and on 9 January, Ali Hussein Barji, commander of Hezbollah’s air force in southern Lebanon, rushed to attend al-Tawil’s funeral.
The purpose of these actions is to force Hezbollah to retaliate in order to invade Lebanon by accusing it of attacking Israel. Tel Aviv has made no secret of its intention to occupy the south of that country along the Litani River and to draw Iran, through Hezbollah, into a major war.
The US and British strikes on the territory of Yemen controlled by the Ansar Allah movement, whose members are also called Houthis after its founder Hussein al- Houthi, who was killed in 2004, have further aggravated the situation and divided the world into those who stand in defence of the people of Palestine and those who support their genocide by Israel. On one side, almost the entire Arab world, the Russian Federation, the PRC, Iran, Turkey, most of the countries of the Global South. On the other, the US and its allies who have blessed Israel to massacre Palestinians and expel them from their homeland.
The plans of Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies in the government coalition were openly announced on New Year’s Eve by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party. Speaking on Army Radio, he called on Gazans to leave the enclave and give way to the Israelis. If there were no more Arabs in Gaza, he said, the bulk of Israeli society would welcome it, turning the enclave into a blossoming place.
The attack on Yemen has brought the Middle East even closer to disaster. The region is one step away from a major war, but the West fully supported the US and UK strikes. It turns out that, as a NATO spokesman said, they were only “defensive in nature and aimed “at preserving freedom of navigation on one of the world’s most important waterways”.
What defence does the US keep many thousands of miles away from its continent? Would it not have been better for America not to indulge for many decades in Israel’s aggressive occupation policy, supporting it with arms, diplomatically and financially, but, as a member of the UN Security Council, to enforce the decisions of this international organisation to establish a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state?
In response to this question, one of the authoritative foreign partners of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who is deeply immersed in the life of American intelligence services, did not hesitate to answer: “The United States has come to believe that with the help of Israel they will be able to maintain their influence in the Middle East. For Washington, it is the only real ally there. The Americans will do anything, even to their own detriment, just to keep this Trojan horse alive”.
Will Anglo-Saxon blows be able to break the Houthis? The Middle East partners of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who are well aware of the warlike mentality of their Yemeni brethren, believe that it is unlikely. Since 2002, the US has conducted 400 strikes in Yemen. They have not achieved their goals without ground operations, and the Americans do not dare to carry them out. The Houthi are not a ragtag collection of ragamuffins with old AKs and traditional Yemeni knives, but a capable army with state-of-the-art weaponry. The forces of the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia have made sure of that.
What and who would be most affected by a deterioration in the Red Sea is world trade, especially Mediterranean and European countries that receive goods from Asia. Some 15 per cent of world trade passes through the Suez Canal, notably 12.5 per cent of refined oil and over 13 per cent of crude oil, as well as up to 8 per cent of global LNG shipments, and 30 per cent of container traffic. When a container ship ran aground in the canal in 2021, disrupting shipping, global trade lost $10 billion a day.
One of those particularly affected will be Egypt, which is in a difficult economic situation, suffering from a shortage of foreign currency and high inflation. Already now Cairo is losing at least $30 million a day due to the direction of some ships, and this is about 100 container ships, bypassing Africa.
The problems in the Red Sea have been compounded by the problems faced by shipping in the Panama Canal, whose capacity has been reduced due to shoaling as a result of a severe drought caused by climate change. The canal accounts for 6 per cent of world trade. It is now operating at only 55 per cent of its normal capacity. While 50-60 container ships a day used to pass through the canal, it is now at 24, and may be down to 18 in February. Vessels with a large draft are forced to circumnavigate South America. The increase in voyage duration and freight costs affects the final price of goods. All consumers have to pay the price.
No one in the Middle East, except Israel, wants tensions to escalate. But it is persistently provoked by Netanyahu’s cabinet and American patrons. If the explosion does occur, it will be a severe blow to the global economy and will provoke increased tensions in other crisis regions of the world.
Nikolay PLOTNIKOV, Head of the Centre for Scientific and Analytical Information, Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Political Sciences, especially for the online magazine «New Eastern Outlook»