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UN Chief Says It’s Time to ‘Truly Flood’ Gaza with Aid, Calls Starvation There an Outrage

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres speaks to the media at El-Arish International Airport in Egypt's northeastern province of North Sinai on March 23, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres speaks to the media at El-Arish International Airport in Egypt's northeastern province of North Sinai on March 23, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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UN Chief Says It’s Time to ‘Truly Flood’ Gaza with Aid, Calls Starvation There an Outrage

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres speaks to the media at El-Arish International Airport in Egypt's northeastern province of North Sinai on March 23, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres speaks to the media at El-Arish International Airport in Egypt's northeastern province of North Sinai on March 23, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

UN Secretary-General António Guterres stood near a long line of waiting trucks Saturday and declared it was time to “truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid," calling the starvation inside the enclave a “moral outrage.” He urged an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Guterres spoke on the Egyptian side of the border not far from the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israel plans to launch a ground assault despite widespread warnings of a potential catastrophe. More than half of Gaza's population has taken refuge there.

“Any further onslaught will make things even worse — worse for Palestinian civilians, worse for hostages and worse for all people in the region," Guterres said.

He spoke a day after the UN Security Council failed to reach consensus on the wording of a US-sponsored resolution supporting “an immediate and sustained ceasefire.”

Guterres repeatedly noted the difficulties of getting aid into Gaza, for which international aid agencies have largely blamed Israel.

“Here from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness … a long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said.

About 7,000 aid trucks are waiting in Egypt's North Sinai province to enter Gaza, Gov. Mohammed Abdel-Fadeil Shousha said in a statement.

Guterres added: “It is time for an ironclad commitment by Israel for total … access for humanitarian goods to Gaza, and in the Ramadan spirit of compassion, it is also time for the immediate release of all hostages.” He later told journalists that a humanitarian ceasefire and hostage release should occur at the same time.

Hamas is believed to be holding around 100 hostages as well as the remains of 30 others taken in its Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and sparked the war.

When asked about Guterres' comments, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to a social media post by Foreign Minister Israel Katz accusing the UN chief of allowing the world body to become “antisemitic and anti-Israeli.”

An estimated 1.5 million Palestinians now shelter in Rafah after fleeing Israel's offensive elsewhere.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said an Israeli ground assault on Rafah would be “a mistake” and unnecessary in defeating Hamas. That marked a shift in the position for the United States, whose officials have concluded there is no credible way for getting civilians out of harm’s way.

Netanyahu has vowed to press forward with military-approved plans for the offensive, which he has said is crucial to achieving the stated aim of destroying Hamas. The military has said Rafah is Hamas’ last major stronghold and ground forces must target four battalions remaining there.

Israel’s invasion has killed more than 32,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, while leaving much of the enclave in ruins and displacing some 80% of the enclave's 2.3 million people. Gaza's Health Ministry said Saturday that the bodies of 72 people killed had been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours.

The Health Ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but has said women and children make up the majority of the dead. Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths and accuses it of operating within residential areas.

Fighting raged Saturday around Gaza’s largest hospital. Israel's military says it has killed more than 170 militants in Shifa hospital since its raid began Monday, and the commanding officer of the Southern Command, Yaron Finkelman, on Friday said: “We will finish this operation only when the last terrorist is in our hands."

Nearby Gaza City residents told The Associated Press that Israeli troops had blown up several residential buildings.

“They are emptying the whole area," said Abdel-Hay Saad, who lives on the western edge of Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood. Another resident, Mohammed al-Sheikh, said that intense Israeli bombardment was “hitting anything moving.”

Associated Press footage showed columns of smoke billowing over the hospital area.

The Health Ministry said five wounded Palestinians trapped at Shifa had died without food, water, medical services. It previously said Israel's military had detained health workers, patients and relatives inside the complex. The military claimed it wasn't harming civilians, patients or workers.

“These conditions are utterly inhumane,” the World Health Organization's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on social media late Friday,

Elsewhere, an older woman and five children were killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike on an area between Rafah and Khan Younis, health authorities said.

Hunger has become deadly, too. The UN and Israel's government again traded allegations over the lack of aid delivery to northern Gaza, the first target of Israel's offensive in the war and where anguished parents have reported watching children scavenge for bread in the rubble.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees — “the backbone of assistance in Gaza,” Guterres said — alleged that Israel had again denied permission for an aid convoy to deliver to northern Gaza. The agency known as UNRWA said that two months have passed since a convoy could reach there.

Israel's government replied by alleging again that hundreds of aid trucks were waiting for the UN and partners to distribute it.

“No time for misinformation. Enough," UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma told the AP in response.

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Arab World

Yemen Interior Minister to Asharq Al-Awsat: Iran Seeking to Militarize Bab al-Mandeb Through the Houthis

Yemen’s interior minister warned that Iran was seeking to “militarize Bab al-Mandeb” through the Houthis. (Turky Al-Agili)
Yemen’s interior minister warned that Iran was seeking to “militarize Bab al-Mandeb” through the Houthis. (Turky Al-Agili)
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Yemen Interior Minister to Asharq Al-Awsat: Iran Seeking to Militarize Bab al-Mandeb Through the Houthis

Yemen’s interior minister warned that Iran was seeking to “militarize Bab al-Mandeb” through the Houthis. (Turky Al-Agili)
Yemen’s interior minister warned that Iran was seeking to “militarize Bab al-Mandeb” through the Houthis. (Turky Al-Agili)

Yemen’s Interior Minister Major General Ibrahim Haidan warned that Iran is seeking to establish long-term military influence over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and its surrounding islands and coastlines by exporting to the Red Sea the model it developed to “militarize maritime corridors” in the Strait of Hormuz.

Haidan said experts from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were helping the Houthis strengthen their capabilities and build fortifications, operations rooms and facilities for missiles, drones and remotely guided boats.

“The danger is not limited to the threats that exist today, but extends to what is being built for the future,” Haidan told Asharq Al-Awsat.

He warned that continued Houthi control of strategic areas could give Iran leverage over one of the world’s most important shipping lanes and help it connect Yemen with the Horn of Africa through smuggling networks and armed groups.

His remarks followed sweeping government losses along Yemen’s western coast. In an offensive from Sept. 3 to 11, the Houthis seized Hays, Al-Khokha, Mokha and its port before advancing to Bab al-Mandeb, Mayyun Island and the remaining Yemeni islands in the southern Red Sea.

Haidan said security readiness had been raised in Aden, Lahj and areas behind the frontlines following the developments in Mokha and along the western coast.

The defense and interior ministries were coordinating through a joint operations room to prevent operatives and cells from infiltrating those areas or exploiting waves of displacement to carry out security breaches, he added.

‘Militarizing’ Bab al-Mandeb

Haidan placed the latest developments in a broader context, saying Yemen was “part of a regional and international security system” and that events there quickly reverberated around the world because of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

The gravest danger, he said, was the military infrastructure being built in the area for future use.

Experts linked to the IRGC were providing the Houthis with expertise and guidance to conduct operations and develop their military capabilities, he said.

Those efforts included building “capabilities, fortifications, bases, operations rooms and caves used to manufacture drones and remotely guided boats and to develop missiles” across Bab al-Mandeb and the surrounding islands, coastlines and highlands.

Haidan said Iran aimed to replicate in Bab al-Mandeb its experience of “militarizing maritime corridors” in the Strait of Hormuz.

That could turn an open international waterway into a source of influence and pressure for future use, he warned.

Iranian and Houthi assurances about the safety of navigation should not be treated as sufficient guarantees, he said, arguing that such messages merely gave the Houthis more time to expand their military systems and fortifications.

Houthi leaders at Mokha port after its capture (Houthi media)

Could Mayyun become another Larak?

Haidan outlined a more specific threat to the Red Sea islands, warning that additional time could allow the Houthis to build bases, hideouts and fortified caves, backed by advanced surveillance, tracking and jamming systems.

Mayyun Island, at the heart of Bab al-Mandeb, could take on a military role similar to that of Iran’s Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, he said.

Zuqar and the Hanish Islands, as well as the highlands and coastlines along the Red Sea, could also become part of an “integrated military system” if the Houthis consolidated their presence in the strait, he added.

From the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa

The danger extends beyond Bab al-Mandeb, according to Haidan.

Houthi control of the strait could give the Revolutionary Guards greater scope to connect Yemen with the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, he said.

Smuggling networks and maritime routes could be used to move weapons, equipment and expertise, strengthen Houthi military and logistical capabilities and expand communication with armed groups and terrorist organizations operating in the Horn of Africa, particularly Somalia’s al Shabaab.

Haidan warned that those groups’ capabilities could merge with those of the Houthis and IRGC networks.

Such coordination could turn Bab al-Mandeb into “a foothold for multifaceted Iranian influence across several arenas” and give Tehran a strategic tool to deploy during any regional escalation, he said.

Destruction in Mokha after being attacked by the Houthis. (Getty Images)

Coastguard needs urgent support

Government forces continue to confront the Houthis and work to regain and secure lost territory, Haidan stressed.

He singled out smuggling as one of the main arteries for financing and supplying the Houthis.

Yemen’s coastguard was carrying out its duties despite limited resources, but needed “urgent, specialized support” from allied and friendly countries, he remarked.

That support should include maritime surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, tracking and monitoring systems, patrol boats and modern equipment. Intelligence capabilities must also be strengthened to uncover smuggling networks, track their routes and intercept their shipments, he added.

Protecting Bab al-Mandeb and combating smuggling were no longer purely domestic Yemeni concerns, Haidan declared.

“The security of navigation and international trade routes begins with the state exercising sovereignty over its territory and waters,” he said.

Confronting the threats required regional and international support for the Yemeni state and stronger state capabilities, he added.

Securing Aden and Lahj

Security deployments have been reinforced at the entrances to Lahj province, the interim capital Aden and surrounding areas as displacement increased following the developments along the western coast, Haidan said.

The Interior Ministry treated the crisis as extending beyond the military frontlines. It acted simultaneously to protect displaced civilians and raise security readiness under plans prepared in advance for different scenarios.

The measures sought to balance the protection of displaced people with the need to stop the Houthis from exploiting their movement “for security purposes or to carry out infiltration and penetration operations,” he said.

Authorities have stepped up coordination and information-sharing among security agencies, local authorities and military units. They have also intensified preemptive intelligence efforts to prevent operatives from entering government-held areas or carrying out acts of sabotage.

A view of a village on the coast of Bab al-Mandeb, Yemen April 2, 2026. (Reuters)

Joint operations room

The defense and interior ministries were coordinating through a “joint operations room,” Haidan said.

Its work included producing a unified assessment of the situation, assigning responsibilities and speeding up responses to developments on the ground.

Security and military services had also strengthened communication and information-sharing, focusing on frontlines, roads and areas that could be used to infiltrate operatives and cells or transport weapons and explosive devices.

Displacement remained “primarily a humanitarian issue,” Haidan said, but it also required careful security management to prevent it from being used as cover to infiltrate operatives or cells into government-held areas.

Sleeper cells and smuggling

Asked about the threats facing the security services, Haidan cited infiltration attempts and the potential use of displacement movements to conceal operatives or transport information and materials for acts of sabotage.

Sleeper cells, smuggling networks and organized crime also posed risks, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The heightened security measures in Aden and Lahj were largely “preventive and preemptive,” Haidan explained. They aimed to stop military pressure on the frontlines from spilling into cities while preserving a humanitarian approach toward displaced people.

People fleeing clashes between Houthi militants and Yemeni government forces gather at the Markazi refugee camp after arriving in Djibouti, September 15, 2026. (Mylaèle Negga/International Organization for Migration/Handout via Reuters)

Mokha a ‘practical test’

Haidan described the events in Mokha as a “direct and practical test” of the security establishment’s readiness and the Interior Ministry’s contingency plans.

From the outset, those plans accounted for advances and retreats, shifting frontlines, widening displacement and mounting pressure on provinces behind the fronts, he said.

Protecting the home front was not a temporary task tied to a particular military development, but an “integral and permanent” part of the Interior Ministry’s work.

Resources and security deployments had been adjusted to battlefield developments, while information-sharing among security agencies, local authorities and military forces had been strengthened, he added.

‘Collusion’ with terrorist groups

Beyond the Houthi threat, Haidan warned that terrorist organizations, smuggling networks and organized crime groups could exploit the widening war, shifting frontlines and troop redeployments to create security vacuums.

He said there was “collusion” between the Houthis and those groups and networks. The relationship predated the latest developments and included links with Somalia’s al Shabaab.

Security agencies did not treat the Houthi threat, terrorism, organized crime and smuggling as separate files, but as “a single security system,” Haidan said.

That required heightened readiness, stronger deployments in sensitive areas and tighter monitoring of entry points, roads and smuggling routes to prevent the military developments from triggering a broader security crisis.

Arab World

US Warns Houthis Through Security Channels: We Are Not Negotiating with You

A soldier from the Yemeni armed forces in Taiz province. (AFP)
A soldier from the Yemeni armed forces in Taiz province. (AFP)
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US Warns Houthis Through Security Channels: We Are Not Negotiating with You

A soldier from the Yemeni armed forces in Taiz province. (AFP)
A soldier from the Yemeni armed forces in Taiz province. (AFP)

US correspondence reviewed by Asharq Al-Awsat revealed that Washington had issued a warning to the Houthis in Yemen through “security channels.”

The substance of the warning was not disclosed in the messages, but it was followed by a US assertion that Washington was not negotiating with the group.

The Houthis’ outreach suggests that the group is seeking to consolidate its position after weeks of military operations culminated in advances along Yemen’s western coast overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The gains pose a fresh threat to international shipping through the strategic waterway, which carries 12% of global trade.

The clarification in the US diplomatic correspondence came after President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance said there had been contact with the group, although neither explained the nature of the communication.

Meanwhile, during a UN Security Council session on the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday, Washington stated: “The US supports Yemen’s legitimate government in confronting the Iran-backed Houthi militia. We call on the Houthis to halt their advance, withdraw from the territory they have seized and stop launching attacks.”

On the ground, Yemen’s government is raising its level of military readiness as it seeks to regain the initiative following recent setbacks on the Taiz and western coastal fronts. Government forces have made slow but seemingly more sustained progress on other fronts, including in al-Jawf and al-Bayda, while continuing to repel Houthi attacks and military buildups near Marib.

Government forces are engaged in fierce battles with the Houthis, which began escalating their operations in August.

The group’s opponents accuse it of violating de-escalation arrangements under orders intended to ease pressure on Iran and enable Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to use the Houthis as leverage against the United States in the war Washington launched in February 2026, which intensified after Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz.

Why security channels?

Observers who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat said the mere use of security channels did not indicate that negotiations or a deal were underway, or even that Washington had accepted the Houthis’ assurances.

Assessing the Houthi move and the US response, Baraa Shiban, an associate fellow at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said the group was trying to compensate for its lack of regional and international recognition by exaggerating claims that it had opened channels of communication with the US administration.

Asked about the “security channels,” Shiban said Western governments commonly maintained this type of contact with militias and terrorist groups. Such communication, however, remained limited, took place outside diplomatic or political frameworks and dealt only with sensitive or urgent security matters.

Iranian tactics

News that the Houthis had contacted the United States was not treated as a passing development. Yemenis sought to understand the group’s sudden move, particularly because its slogan calls for “death to America”, raising the question of how it could communicate with Washington.

Mahmoud Shehrah, an associate fellow at Britain’s Chatham House, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the development was “part of a Houthi strategy that represents an extension of Iran’s and the Revolutionary Guards’ conduct and negotiating tactics.”

Shehrah, a former Yemeni diplomat, said the Houthis’ approach was based on gradually escalating tensions, launching a swift offensive and then offering assurances if they made gains, in an effort to avoid becoming embroiled in an all-out war.

That, he said, was what had happened in Bab al-Mandeb. The Houthis had now “taken a big bite” and were trying to digest it. The group was therefore seeking to consolidate its gains and, in the meantime, needed to offer assurances to prevent a swift response. It consequently sought to reassure the US and the international community.

The group also consistently sought to isolate its opponents, a tactic it had repeatedly employed in the past.

Shehrah recalled that when the Houthis captured Sanaa, they began by reassuring all political forces. Once they had consolidated their presence, they met each party separately and told it that the other side was the enemy, until they had eliminated them all.

He said the group now wanted to employ the same approach internationally, regardless of whether it could succeed.

Arab World

Syria Parliament Votes to Abolish Assad-Era Terrorism Court, Nullify Rulings

Members of Syria's newly formed People's Assembly attend the body's inaugural session, the first parliament session since the end of the rule of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, July 12, 2026. (Reuters)
Members of Syria's newly formed People's Assembly attend the body's inaugural session, the first parliament session since the end of the rule of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, July 12, 2026. (Reuters)
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Syria Parliament Votes to Abolish Assad-Era Terrorism Court, Nullify Rulings

Members of Syria's newly formed People's Assembly attend the body's inaugural session, the first parliament session since the end of the rule of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, July 12, 2026. (Reuters)
Members of Syria's newly formed People's Assembly attend the body's inaugural session, the first parliament session since the end of the rule of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, July 12, 2026. (Reuters)

Syria's parliament voted on Wednesday ‌to abolish an Assad-era terrorism court and nullify the legal effects of its rulings, state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV reported, in one of the first significant legislative moves by the country's new assembly.

The Counter-Terrorism Court was established in 2012 as then-President Bashar al-Assad sought to suppress an uprising against his rule, and it was used to prosecute thousands of Syrians for terrorism-related offences.

The move formalizes the court's abolition after Syria's new authorities had already treated it as defunct. ‌In June 2025, President ‌Ahmad al-Sharaa issued a decree dismissing ‌67 ⁠judges who had served ⁠in what he described at the time as the "abolished Counter-Terrorism Court".

Syria's March 2025 constitutional declaration had also called for abolishing the effects of what it described as unjust rulings issued by the court, including returning confiscated property.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee said in 2024 that the ⁠2012 law establishing the court failed to ‌adequately provide key judicial guarantees ‌and raised concerns over arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, and the ‌court's independence. It also noted that the court was ‌permitted to depart from ordinary procedures during prosecution and trial.

The UN's International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism said in a 2024 report that the Counter-Terrorism Court formed part of the judicial system through ‌which detainees held by Assad-era security agencies could be prosecuted. The report documented widespread and ⁠systematic torture ⁠and ill-treatment across the government's detention system.

Wednesday's vote came during the opening weeks of the first parliament formed since Assad was toppled in December 2024. The chamber convened for the first time in July.

The vote is among the assembly's first major legislative decisions after it spent its initial sessions establishing its internal rules and committees. It held a hearing this week with Education Minister Mohammad Abdul Rahman Tarkou over the state of the country's schools and is due to question the energy minister on Thursday over a sharp rise in fuel prices.