Israel called on the United Nations Security Council to hold Iran accountable after a months-long series of attacks by Yemen’s Houthis culminated in last Friday’s deadly drone assault on Tel Aviv.
In a Monday emergency UNSC meeting called for by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, Noa Furman, Israel’s deputy U.N. ambassador, said the pressure needed to be ratcheted up on Iran, which funds and trains the Houthis, among other terror groups in the region.
Calling Iran the “head of the snake,” Furman said, “The international community must act decisively by imposing more crippling sanctions on Tehran, which, she contended, continues to “threaten the stability of the Middle East and the entire world.”
Friday’s drone hit a residential building close to the U.S. embassy branch office in Tel Aviv. One civilian was killed and 10 others were injured.
The Houthis immediately claimed responsibility. Their military spokesman announced that the action was a response to Israel’s military operations in Gaza against Hamas, another Tehran proxy.
Israel retaliated on Saturday, decimating Yemen’s port of Hodaydah, controlled by the Houthis, in a long-distance aerial operation—the first direct and publicly claimed Israeli strike on Yemeni territory.
The Houthis said the attack hit fuel-storage facilities, killing at least nine and injuring more than 80 people. The Houthis control much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and other large areas of the country.
While Yemen claims that the Hodaydah port serves as a gateway for fuel imports and international aid, Furman said on Monday that the port is being utilized for “terrorist purposes and therefore is a legitimate military target.”
She said that the drones and other projectiles, which have been relentlessly fired and, until Friday, intercepted mainly by U.S. forces, “are pieces of Iranian military equipment that are assembled and used by the Houthis.”
Throughout Israel’s war against Hamas, the Houthis have launched attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, in attempts to choke off deliveries to Israel and to pressure the international community to back Hamas’s demands.
Washington, London and Paris joined Jerusalem’s call for additional sanctions on Tehran as a result of the continued assaults.
“If this does not meet the textbook definition of a threat to international peace and security, I don’t know what does,” said Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations.
Wood characterized the Houthis as terrorists who are “desperate to distract from their own record of catastrophic failures in Yemen,” and warned that UNSC members blocking accountability on behalf of Iran and the Houthis would be “complicit in undermining the credibility of this Council’s resolutions.”
Barbara Woodward, the U.K.’s U.N. ambassador, joined in, saying that Friday’s strike on Tel Aviv was “not the first Houthi attack against Israel and its people, but it is the first that has cost civilian lives.”
Russia, which has served as a war-long agitator to Israel, claimed the Houthis are simply backing the Palestinians.
“Coming up on 10 months now, Israel has been carrying out a bloody operation in the Gaza Strip,” said Vassily Nebenzia, Moscow’s U.N. envoy, critiquing what he calls U.S. protection of Israel.
China and Algeria were likewise critical, using their time on Monday to call for the imposition of a ceasefire in Gaza.
It is almost assured that Russia would use its veto power as a permanent member of the UNSC to block any sanctions on Iran, as Moscow has relied on Tehran for drones in its own war against Ukraine.