25/1/2024–|Last updated: 1/25/202407:06 PM (Mecca time)
The leader of the Ansar Allah group said:The Houthis” Abdul Malik Al Houthi The operations are in The Red Sea It will continue until food and medicine reach the entire Gaza Strip, while the United States and Britain imposed sanctions on senior Houthi officials and leaders against the backdrop of this crisis.
Al-Houthi added, in a televised speech, that the Red Sea battle “is linked to what is happening in Gaza, and is not separate as the Americans portray it, and it will stop with the cessation of Zionist crime.”
Al-Houthi confirmed that his forces “have so far used more than 200 drones and more than 50 ballistic and winged missiles in this battle, which aims to support the Palestinian people, and has no other goals.”
He said that America is fighting for ships loaded with goods to reach Israel, but it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza.
“They are not welcome”
In the midst of these developments, a private source confirmed to Al Jazeera that the Houthis informed international organizations that their employees of American and British nationalities are not welcome in the areas under their control.
The source added that the movement gave these employees one month to leave those areas and that it would not bring in anyone else in the future.
In turn, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the Secretary-General of the United Nations, said that the international organization received a letter from the Houthis asking UN employees of American and British nationality to leave the area under their control in Yemen. He added that this does not comply with the legal framework applied to the United Nations.
British-American sanctions
In the opposite camp, Britain and the United States announced Thursday the imposition of sanctions on 4 Houthi officials in Yemen, whom they consider responsible for organizing attacks on ships in the Red Sea, which hinders maritime transport in the region.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said in a statement that these sanctions reinforce the clear message that we have sent to the Houthis in recent weeks, stressing that “London will continue, with its allies, to target those responsible for the unacceptable and illegal attacks launched by the Houthis that threaten the lives of innocent sailors and affect shipments.” Aid to the Yemeni people.
In conjunction with this, the US Treasury Department said that the United States imposed sanctions on four senior Houthi leaders in Yemen following the attacks that targeted ships in the Red Sea.
The ministry added that the sanctions affected the Minister of Defense, the Commander of the Coastal Defense Forces, the Director of Purchasing, and the Commander of the Houthi Naval Forces.
Field developments
Yesterday evening, Wednesday, Yahya Saree, the military spokesman for the Houthis, said that the movement’s forces clashed with American destroyers and warships in both the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandab.
Saree announced that an American warship was directly hit during the clash, which he said included the use of a number of ballistic missiles.
For his part, Strategic Policy Coordinator at the US National Security Council, John Kirby, said that the Houthis fired 3 missiles at ships in the Red Sea, two of which were intercepted, while the third missed its target and fell into the sea.
Kirby added that the attack “clearly confirms that the Houthis still intend to carry out these attacks, which means that we will also clearly have to do what we must to protect navigation,” as he put it.
For its part, Reuters quoted a US official as saying that no ship was hit during the Houthi attack yesterday, Wednesday.
The official – who requested to remain anonymous – explained that “the Houthi missiles did not hit any American warships or commercial ships today.”
