LONDON/WASHINGTON: Britain and the United States on Thursday said they had sanctioned four senior Houthi officials for their roles in supporting or directing attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
The Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping and stoked fears of global inflation. They have also deepened concern that fallout from the Israel-Hamas war could destabilize the Middle East.
Those sanctioned were Houthi Defense Minister Mohamed Nasser Al-Atifi, Commander of Houthi Naval Forces Muhammad Fadl Abd Al-Nabi, coastal defense forces chief Muhammad Ali Al-Qadiri and Muhammed Ahmad Al-Talibi, who the two governments described as the Houthi forces director of procurement.
“The Houthis’ persistent terrorist attacks on merchant vessels and their civilian crews ... threaten to disrupt international supply chains and the freedom of navigation, which is critical to global security, stability, and prosperity,” the US Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in a statement.
“Today’s joint action with the United Kingdom demonstrates our collective action to leverage all authorities to stop these attacks.”
Britain said the four men were involved in acts which “threaten the peace, security and stability of Yemen.”
The US action freezes any US-based assets of those targeted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.
On Monday, US and British forces carried out a new round of strikes in Yemen, targeting a Houthi underground storage site as well as missile and surveillance capabilities used by the Iran-aligned group against Red Sea shipping.
UK and US sanction senior Houthis over Red Sea shipping attacks
https://arab.news/bafwf
UK and US sanction senior Houthis over Red Sea shipping attacks
- The Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping and stoked fears of global inflation
- They have also deepened concern that fallout from the Israel-Hamas war could destabilize the Middle East
Israel says Hamas ‘will be disarmed’ after group proposes weapons freeze
- A top Hamas leader said on Wednesday that the militant group is open to a weapons “freeze,” but rejects the demand for disarmament
DOHA: Israel said on Thursday that Hamas “will be disarmed” as part of the US-sponsored peace plan for Gaza, after a top leader from the Islamist movement suggested a weapons freeze.
“There will be no future for Hamas under the 20-point plan. The terror group will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarised,” the Israeli official told AFP.
Hamas’s Khaled Meshaal told Qatari news channel Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the militant group is open to a weapons “freeze,” but rejects the demand for disarmament put forward in US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza.
A top Hamas leader told Qatari news channel Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the militant group is open to a weapons “freeze,” but rejects the demand for disarmament put forward in the US-sponsored peace plan for Gaza.
“The idea of total disarmament is unacceptable to the resistance (Hamas). What is being proposed is a freeze, or storage (of weapons)... to provide guarantees against any military escalation from Gaza with the Israeli occupation,” said Khaled Meshaal in an interview aired Wednesday.
“This is the idea we’re discussing with the mediators, and I believe that with pragmatic American thinking... such a vision could be agreed upon with the US administration,” he said.
The US-sponsored ceasefire deal, in effect since October 10, halted the war that began after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. But it remains fragile as Israel and Hamas accuse each other almost daily of breaches.
The agreement is composed of three phases. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently indicated that it was about to enter the second phase.
Under that phase Israeli troops would further withdraw from their positions in Gaza and be replaced by an international stabilization force (ISF), while Hamas would lay down its weapons.
Netanyahu is expected to meet with US President Donald Trump in the US later this month to discuss the steps forward in the truce.
But the Palestinian militant group has indicated it would not agree to giving up its arsenal.
“Disarmament for a Palestinian means stripping away his very soul. Let’s achieve that goal another way,” Meshaal added.
In the first phase of the deal Palestinian militants committed to releasing the remaining 48 living and dead captives held in the territory. All of the hostages have so far been released except for one body.
In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in its custody and returned the bodies of hundreds of dead Palestinians.
As for the international peacekeeping force, Meshaal said the group was open to its deployment along Gaza’s border with Israel, but would not agree to it operating inside the Palestinian territory, calling such a plan an “occupation.”
“We have no objection to international forces or international stabilization forces being deployed along the border, like UNIFIL,” he said, referring to the UN peacekeeping force deployed in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border.
“They would separate Gaza from the occupation,” he added, referring to Israel.
“As for the presence of international forces inside Gaza, in Palestinian culture and consciousness that means an occupying force.”
Mediators as well as Arab and Islamic nations, he said, could act as “guarantors” that there would be no escalation originating from inside Gaza.
“The danger comes from the Zionist entity, not from Gaza,” he added, referring to Israel.
