António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, drew criticism over the weekend for speaking up about seven U.N. staffers whom Houthi terrorists took captive in Yemen, but not finding his voice sufficiently about the Israeli hostages who remain kidnapped in Gaza.
“I demand the immediate and unconditional release of the seven U.N. colleagues arbitrarily detained by the Houthis in Yemen this week, as well as those previously detained and held,” the global body’s head stated. “U.N. personnel and partners must not be targeted, arrested or detained while carrying out their duties.”
On Saturday, the U.S. State Department condemned “the unlawful actions of the Houthis, who forcibly took additional United Nations staff members in Yemen on Jan. 23.”
“These actions come amid the Houthis’s ongoing campaign of terror that includes taking hundreds of U.N., NGO and diplomatic staff members, including dozens of current and former Yemeni staff of the U.S. government,” Foggy Bottom said. (U.S. President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order, which starts the process of relisting the Houthis as a foreign terror group.)
The State Department said on Saturday that it supports U.N. “efforts to secure the unconditional and immediate release of all Houthi detainees. This latest Houthi roundup demonstrates the bad faith of the terrorist group’s claims to seek de-escalation and also makes a mockery of their claims to represent the interests of the Yemeni people.”
Victoria Coates, a former U.S. national security official and vice president of the National Security and Foreign Policy Institute at the Heritage Foundation, shared the U.N. chief’s post. “Do this for the Israelis and Americans in Gaza 15 months ago, you ghoul,” she wrote.
“U.N. personnel must be released right now, says António Guterres. Israeli babies? Meh,” wrote the Jewish Policy Center.
“Now do this for the 90 hostages in Gaza who have spent 477 days in the hands of terrorists,” wrote Aviva Klompas, a former speechwriting head for the Israeli mission to the United Nations.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed bin Mubarak about “cooperation to stop Houthi attacks in the region and eliminate their capabilities,” according to State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce.
The two “discussed the importance of ending the Houthi threat to the Red Sea maritime security and surrounding waterways and their shared concerns regarding unlawful Houthi detentions of diplomatic, U.N. and NGO staff, including current and former Yemeni staff of the U.S. mission to Yemen, as well as the most recent detentions of additional U.N. staff,” Bruce stated.
“The secretary said that he looked forward to continuing to support the Republic of Yemen government in confronting the Houthis,” she added.
A reporter asked U.S. President Donald Trump about relisting the Houthis as a terror group on Friday, as the president signed executive orders in the White House’s Oval Office.
“How do you see the war in Yemen end now?” the reporter asked.
“Well, we’ll see what happens, but they can’t shoot down our ships—the Houthis,” Trump said. “You can’t shoot down our ships or any ships, and that’s what they’ve been doing. So, they’re on the terror list.”
