President promises school for Gaza in talks with Arab envoys

It is still not clear whether the President would go ahead with the deployment given the worsening war situation in the Red Sea region. The US and Britain have carried out multiple bombing raids on Houthi positions in Yemen, and the Houthis have vowed revenge attacks.

On Wednesday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding Yemen’s Houthi forces end attacks on ships in the Red Sea and free the Japanese-operated Galaxy Leader that was seized last year.

Eleven members of the council voted for the measure calling on the Iran-aligned Houthis to “immediately cease all attacks, which impede global commerce and navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace”.

Four members – Algeria, China, Mozambique and Russia – abstained. None voted against. As permanent members of the council, China and Russia have vetoes but chose not to use them.

“The world’s message to the Houthis today was clear: Cease these attacks immediately,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US’ ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement after the vote. The US sponsored the resolution alongside

Japan.

The US says the Iran-backed Houthis have carried out 26 attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea since commandeering the Galaxy Leader and its 25-strong multinational crew on November 19.

The Houthis claim they are targeting Israeli-linked or Israel-bound vessels in protest against the ongoing war on Gaza, but many of the ships have had no discernible link with the country, and many lines have begun to avoid the area altogether.

The key provision of the resolution noted the right of UN member states, in accordance with international law, “to defend their vessels from attack, including those that undermine navigational rights and freedoms”.

The provision amounts to an implicit endorsement of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a US-led multinational naval task force, that was established in December to defend commercial shipping from Houthi attacks.

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the head of Yemen’s Houthi supreme revolutionary committee in Yemen, dismissed the UN resolution as a “political game” and claimed the US was the one violating international law.