UN calls on Iran-backed Houthis to stop attacks on Red Sea shipping

The United Nations is calling on Yemen’s Houthi rebels to implement the Security Council resolution adopted last week demanding an immediate halt to its attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

“We’re very concerned by the continuing strikes,” says UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

The Iranian-backed Houthis, who have been engaged in a civil war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government since 2014, have said they launched the attacks in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7 shock assault.

The UN resolution condemns the more than two dozen Houthi attacks which have disrupted one of the world’s major trade routes and raised shipping costs.

Dujarric said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Monday about the situation in the Red Sea and in Gaza. The UN chief “reiterated his call to all the parties to avoid any further escalation” in Yemen and implement last week’s resolution, and reiterated the need for greater humanitarian access in Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages, the UN spokesman said.

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, who has been consulting with all sides, spoke to the Iranian foreign minister’s senior advisor, Ali Asghar Khaji earlier Tuesday, Dujarric said.

They discussed “the need to maintain an environment conducive to constructive dialogue and sustained concerted regional efforts to peace in Yemen,” the UN spokesperson said.

Grundberg and others then briefed the Security Council behind closed doors.

Senate rejects measure to force human rights report on Israel for aid

A resolution aiming to place new conditions on US security aid to Israel has been overwhelmingly voted down in the Senate, as anticipated.

The resolution submitted by progressive senator Bernie Sanders sought to freeze all US security aid to Israel unless the State Department issues a report within 30 days that examines whether the IDF committed human rights violations in the conduct of its war in Gaza.

The resolution was voted down 72 to 11, with only Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, Chris Van Hollen, Heinrich, Laphonza Butler, Ed Markey, Ben Ray Lujan, Mazie Hirono, Peter Welch and Elizabeth Warren and Republican Rand Paul voting against.

The vote was forced earlier by Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

While the measure was handily defeated, it reflected growing concern among some of US President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats, especially on the left. The outliers who opposed the measure are a small but growing far-left flank of the Democratic Party along with a handful of Republican libertarians who oppose all foreign aid.

“We must ensure that US aid is being used in accordance with human rights and our own laws,” Sanders said in a speech before the vote urging support for the resolution, lamenting what he described as the Senate’s failure to consider any measure looking at the war’s effect on civilians.

The White House had said it opposed the resolution, which could have paved the way toward the imposition of conditions on security assistance to Israel.

The United States gives Israel $3.8 billion in such assistance each year, ranging from fighter jets to powerful bombs that could destroy Hamas tunnels. Biden has asked Congress to approve an additional $14 billion.

Sanders’ resolution was filed under the Foreign Assistance Act, which allows Congress to direct State to provide a human rights report and other information on any country received US security assistance.

If the resolution had passed, it would have required the State Department to provide a report to Congress within 30 days. After receiving the report, Congress could consider another resolution proposing changes to security assistance to Israel.

Israel launched the war to eradicate Hamas, an Iran-backed group sworn to Israel’s destruction, after thousands of terrorists stormed across the border on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing 240 hostages.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said the war has killed over 24,000 people. The figure cannot be independently verified, and is believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires. The IDF says it has killed over 9,000 operatives in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on and immediately after October 7.

US welcomes Qatar deal to deliver medicine to Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza

The Biden administration welcomed an announcement by Qatar that it had reached an agreement to deliver medicine to Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, says National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.

Biden admin to relist Houthis as specially designated global terrorists – source

The Biden administration was expected to announce plans to relist Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels as specially designated global terrorists, a US official tells Reuters.

The US military has carried out a series of strikes in Yemen against anti-ship ballistic missiles in a Houthi-controlled part of the country in response to attacks by the rebel group that have disrupted Red Sea shipping.

The Iran-allied Houthi militia has threatened to expand its attacks to include US ships in response to American and British strikes on its sites in Yemen.

The Houthi group, officially known as Ansar Allah, has been attacking vessels in the Red Sea since the October 7 shock Hamas attacks on southern Israel that triggered the Israel-Hamas war. They say their actions are in support of Palestinians in Gaza. The group’s slogan officially goes: “God Is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

The Houthis, who seized much of Yemen in a civil war, have vowed to attack ships linked to Israel or bound for Israeli ports en route in the Red Sea.

However, many of the targeted ships have had no links to Israel.

US President Joe Biden on Friday called Yemen’s Houthi forces a “terrorist” group, after American and British warplanes, ships and submarines launched dozens of air strikes across Yemen overnight.

The Houthi militia movement has threatened a “strong and effective response.”

Macron: France stayed out of coalition against Houthis to avoid ‘escalation’

France stayed out of a Britain-US coalition that carried out airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels who have attacked shipping in the Red Sea as Paris feared an escalation, says French President Emmanuel Macron.

“France has decided not to join a coalition that has carried out pre-emptive strikes against the Houthis on their soil. Why? Precisely because we have a position that seeks to avoid any escalation,” Macron told reporters, emphasizing that the subject was not “military” but “diplomatic.”