Soaring prices at the pump, the scrapping of mortgage deals, and the prospect of higher prices for everything from food to smartphones. The US-Israeli attack on Iran, and Tehran’s retaliation, has rocked the global economy. Consumers are already feeling the pain of the biggest energy supply shock in history, and Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed on Thursday that the strait of Hormuz will remain closed, according to a statement attributed to him by state media. The corridor is the biggest chokepoint for the global energy system. The relief to oil prices brought by the International Energy Agency’s largest ever release of reserves had already proved shortlived: as the US and Israel intensified attacks on Iran, it escalated attacks on transport infrastructure across the Gulf.

But the impact is not evenly felt. In Asia, heavily reliant on the Middle East for crude oil and liquefied natural gas, Bangladesh closed all its universities and Pakistan some of its schools due to fuel shortages. While US coverage is dominated by the impact at home, others are paying a higher price. And it is the world’s poorest and most vulnerable who will be worst hit.

The war has created a new humanitarian crisis – with millions displaced in Iran and Lebanon, and healthcare facilities hit as well as more than 17,000 residential buildings, according to Iran’s Red Crescent. But it is also deepening existing ones, and it comes as US cuts to aid – and reductions by Britain and others – are already pushing millions deeper into hunger.

In Gaza, food prices have surged after Israel closed crossings. The World Health Organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and others are struggling to ship essential aid from the region: Dubai is home to a major humanitarian logistics hub and the Middle East’s largest container terminal – which caught fire after it was struck by wreckage from an intercepted Iranian missile. Companies are reportedly imposing emergency surcharges of about $3,000 a container. The World Food Programme says that the crisis has added an extra 9,000km to its shipments from India to Sudan, the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

The oil shock doesn’t just mean higher costs for transporting relief, but also, for example, running generators for clinics. Local food production will also be hit: around half of Sudan’s fertiliser comes from the Middle East. And many states face reduced remittances from migrant workers who cannot afford to flee the Gulf like richer foreigners, but are struggling to find sufficient work. Sam Vigersky of the Council on Foreign Relations thinktank warned of a developing “polycrisis … push[ing] the hungry toward emergency – and those already in emergency toward famine”. For millions, the economic shock may not merely mean straitened circumstances, but the difference between life and death.

While the UN and others are rightly pressing for safe passage of humanitarian convoys through the strait of Hormuz, and the prioritisation of essential goods amid airspace restrictions, what is needed most is an end to this disastrous and illegal war. US voters, paying for a conflict that they cannot see the point of, at least have some collective ability to push Donald Trump to declaring a swift exit – though effecting a real end to the conflict may prove harder. Others, facing far more economic pain, can only wait and suffer.

US-Israel war on Iran

Middle East and north Africa

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