In 2024, while all eyes were on Gaza, President Joe Biden launched a bombing campaign in Yemen that displaced more than 531,000 people. Nearly 40,000 were driven from their homes by U.S. bombs alone.

It was called Operation Prosperity Guardian, and you probably never heard of it.

There was no congressional vote. No White House press conference. And yet by the end of the year, U.S. warplanes had hit schools, mosques, farms, ports, and fuel trucks across Yemen, causing a humanitarian collapse that rivaled the worst years of the Saudi-led war.

Two reports issued by Yemen’s National Team for Foreign Outreach (NTFG), reviewed by MintPress News, have revealed staggering statistics about the impacts of Biden’s final military campaign against the war-torn Arab nation.

President Biden, in his first foreign policy speech in 2021, declared that ending the “catastrophic” war in Yemen would be a top priority. By then, the U.S.-backed war, primarily carried out by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, had already claimed nearly 400,000 lives since its 2015 launch under Barack Obama’s administration.

In October 2023, the Ansar Allah-led government in Sana’a began intervening in the Gaza war, following Israel’s bombing campaign that killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. After launching missiles, the group imposed a blockade in the Red Sea on Israeli-linked ships. Rather than pursuing negotiations, the White House responded by deepening its military intervention in support of Israel.

This is peak American foreign policy… When asked if the strikes on Yemen are working Biden replies: “When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”

Literally saying “bombing these folks is useless, but we’ll keep doing it”. pic.twitter.com/otzJC6hzpS

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) January 19, 2024

In December 2023, then–Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the launch of a multinational naval mission called Operation Prosperity Guardian. Under this campaign, the Biden administration initiated airstrikes on Ansar Allah in Yemen without congressional approval or popular mandate.

According to the first NTFG report, the U.S.-led operation, alongside subsequent Israeli airstrikes, worsened Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, increasing the number of civilians in need of urgent aid from 18.2 million to 19.5 million in 2024 alone. In other words, the U.S.-taxpayer-funded war effort pushed 1.3 million additional people into poverty last year.

The report also noted that U.N. officials “warned of the U.S., U.K., and Israeli attempts to disrupt Sana’a International Airport and the ports of Hodeidah to obstruct and suspend international humanitarian aid to Yemen, especially since these vital facilities are crucial humanitarian sites.”

That warning highlights what appears to be the intentional collective punishment of the Yemeni people. Nearly 80% of the country’s food is imported.

Sites damaged or destroyed in December 2024 included:

• 23 commercial facilities
• Eight petrol stations
• Two tourist facilities
• Six schools
• Six mosques
• 45 roads and bridges
• Six water tanks and networks
• Five seaports
• Four farms
• 13 food trucks
• Four fuel trucks
• 37 agricultural fields

The second NTFG report focused on internal displacement and humanitarian fallout. According to U.N. statistics cited in the report, 531,000 people were internally displaced in Yemen during 2024, with at least 38,129 of them forcibly displaced directly by military attacks.

In the final month of Biden’s presidency, the U.S. and its allies targeted an alarming number of civilian sites. The report states:

Airstrikes targeted power stations in the Capital Secretariat (Sana’a) and Hodeidah, setting fire to critical equipment necessary for electricity production and leaving civilians without power. In addition to crippling Yemen’s electricity supply, the U.S.-U.K.-Zionist coalition launched attacks on key Red Sea ports in Hodeidah, including Al-Salif Port, Hodeidah Port, and Ras Issa Port. These strikes resulted in multiple deaths and injuries among port workers, disrupting vital trade and humanitarian supply lines.”

Though the Trump administration has intensified the war since taking office, the U.S. military campaign in Yemen now spans more than a decade. Indeed, until Israel’s assault on Gaza, it was widely considered the world’s worst man-made humanitarian catastrophe.

While under Biden, Ansar Allah was designated a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” organization. The Trump administration has since replaced that label with the more severe “Foreign Terrorist Organization” designation. The new classification drastically impairs the ability of humanitarian groups to deliver aid, effectively criminalizing relief work in large swaths of northern Yemen.

Feature photo | Locals inspect a building destroyed by U.S. airstrikes overnight in Sana’a, Yemen, March 20, 2025. Photo | AP

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

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