Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has warned that recent US-led strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen would only deepen regional divides over Israel’s war on Gaza.
Al Thani said Tuesday that tensions in the Middle East are “affecting everyone,” stressing that the primary focus for leaders should be to diffuse the war in Gaza, where Israel’s deadly military offensive since October 7 has decimated swathes of the territory and left more than 2.2 million people facing famine, deadly disease and forcible displacement.
“We always prefer diplomacy over any military resolutions, and we believe that we shouldn’t just focus on those small conflicts, we should focus on the main conflict in Gaza and as soon it’s diffused, I believe that everything else will be diffused,” the Qatari prime minister said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
When asked about US and UK striking Houthi targets in Yemen over attacks on the Red Sea, he called its impact on the freedom of navigation “a global issue.”
“What we have in the region is a recipe of escalation everywhere,” he added.
The Red Sea is an important shipping route for Qatar, which is a major exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Regional divides: Since November, the Houthis — an Iran-backed Shia political and military organization — have been launching drones and missiles at commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea.
Then on Thursday, the US and UK launched strikes against Houthi targets in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, marking the fiercest response from the Biden administration since the salvos began.
The Houthis have said their bombardments are showing solidarity with the Palestinian people, adding they will only relent when Israel allows the entry of food and medicine into Gaza.
The strikes could be intended to inflict economic pain on Israel’s allies in the hope they will pressure it to cease its military offensive, which has killed at least 24,100 Palestinians and injured another 60,834 people, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza.
CNN cannot independent confirm the numbers due to difficulty of reporting from the war zone.
CNN’s Celine Alkhaldi, Ibrahim Dahman, Ivana Kottasová, Oren Liebermann, Haley Britzky, Natasha Bertrand, Kevin Liptak, Alex Marquardt, MJ Lee and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.
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