‘Don’t Call for De-escalation When We Defend Ourselves,’ Israel Tells UN of Houthis

Wednesday, 01 January 2025 | Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations [UN], held up a map at the UN Security Council meeting, which Israel called, on Monday to demonstrate that Yemen shares no border with the Jewish state. Yet the Houthis, an Iranian proxy, have attacked Israel from Yemen purportedly in solidarity with Hamas and have disturbed international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

“We have no dispute with them, yet they send their missiles and drones to murder our people, and why?” Danon said. “Pure, radical, jihadist [Muslim holy war with unbelievers] hatred for Jews.”

Danon, who told the global body that the attacks are personal for him after the Houthis fired missiles at the school he attended as a child, said that Israel has had enough.

“If you didn’t speak up when our schools were hit, don’t speak up when we respond,” he said. “Don’t call for de-escalation when we defend ourselves.”

The Israeli envoy slammed the United Nations for failing to enforce the Security Council’s arms embargo against the Houthis and said that Israel is aware of several ships that have evaded UN verification and inspection and have delivered Iranian weapons through Houthi-controlled Red Sea ports.

“It is time the world wakes up. A terror group attacking trade routes, collaborating with global terror networks and armed by Iran is not just a regional threat,” Danon said. “It is a grim warning for the world order. They have been given a green light for terror.”

He warned the Houthis to learn from the downfall of Hamas, Hezbollah and Bashar Assad, the deposed Syrian president. “You will share their miserable fate,” Danon said.

JNS asked Stéphanie Tremblay, associate spokeswoman for António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, why the global body’s head has—as he did during Israel’s war against Hezbollah—only criticized the Houthis in tandem with Israel and only once the Jewish state responds to the almost daily fire it incurs.

Tremblay told JNS that Guterres has issued press statements that criticized only the Houthis.

JNS sought further comment from Tremblay, noting that those statements condemned the Houthi only for attacks in the Red Sea or for kidnapping UN staff but not for attacking Israel.

After the Houthis shot missiles at Israel last week, JNS asked Tremblay at a UN press conference on December. 27 whether Guterres had issued a statement on the attack.

“We are very concerned that the Houthis continue to launch attacks targeting Israel, including including [the] missile fired earlier today that was intercepted,” Tremblay said, before pivoting to Houthi attacks on shipping and marine vessels.

China and Slovenia criticized Israel’s latest response to the Houthis, which included strikes on the airport in the capital of Sanaa on December. 26, while the head of the World Health Organization was waiting to board a flight.

South Korea accused the Houthis of “exploiting” regional instability in ways that endanger Yemeni citizens and impede the prospects for peace, and Ecuador said the Houthis had launched a “campaign of aggression” that lacks justification and holds grave security and humanitarian consequences. 

Japan also rejected the Houthis’ claims of acting in solidarity with Palestinians, calling their actions “opportunistic.”