The Houthis have said legal immunity enjoyed by UN staff working in Yemen should not be used as a cover for espionage, days after at least 18 UN personnel were detained in the capital Sanaa.
Houthi rebels raided UN premises on Sunday. The operation came after an Israeli strike on Sanaa killed the prime minister of the Houthi-run government, Ahmed Al Rahwi, and several other ministers.
Yemen's Houthi-run Foreign Ministry said it respected “the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations … while emphasising that these immunities do not protect espionage activities or those who engage in them, nor provide them with legal cover”.
Before the weekend raids, the Houthis were already holding 23 UN personnel, some since 2021. In February, a UN staff member died while in Houthi custody.
“So far, the Unicef [UN children's fund] and WFP [World Food Programme] offices remain under the Houthi control,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday, again calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all those detained.
He said the Houthis had also broken into the UN Development Programme complex.
“We reiterate that the safety and security of UN personnel and property must be guaranteed and that the inviolability of UN premises must be respected at all times,” he said.
The Houthi Foreign Ministry also accused the UN of bias, saying it had condemned “legal measures taken by the government against spy cells involved in crimes” but failed to denounce the Israeli attack on Sanaa, the Houthi-run news agency Saba reported.
The Houthis are a key component of Iran's anti-Israel axis across the Middle East. They have launched repeated drone and missile attacks against Israel since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023.
Israel has carried out several rounds of retaliatory strikes on Yemen, against ports, power stations and the international airport in Sanaa.
On Thursday the Houthis fired another missile towards Israel, saying the target was Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. Israel said the missile fell in an open area outside Israeli territory.
In response, Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed to inflict the biblical 10 plagues of Egypt on the rebels.
"The Houthis are firing missiles at Israel again. A plague of darkness, a plague of the firstborn - we will complete all 10 plagues," he posted on X.
He was referring to the 10 disasters that the Book of Exodus says were inflicted on Egypt by the Hebrew God to convince the pharaoh to free the enslaved Israelites.
Yemen has been split between a Houthi administration in Sanaa and a Saudi-backed government in Aden since the Iran-aligned group seized the capital in late 2014, starting a decade-long conflict.
