Yemen’s Ansarullah has denounced a decision by the US social media platform X to delete the account of the resistance movement.
Ansarullah said in a brief statement on Saturday that the move attests to the sheer hypocrisy exercised by the executive officers of the service, formerly known as Twitter.
The action, Ansarullah said, exposes the double standards of the platform as to freedom of speech, and comes at the behest of the Israel lobby and interest groups working in favor of the occupying regime.
On Friday, the US State Department returned Ansarullah to a list of terrorist groups, imposing harsh sanctions against the Yemeni resistance movement.
The United States in January had said it would designate Ansarullah as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” as it aimed to cut off funding and weapons the group had used to attack Israeli-affiliated commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
Ansarullah spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said in a statement the US decision reflects “blatant hypocrisy” and denounced Washington over sponsoring terrorism by supporting Israel.
“Yemen persists in supporting Gaza by all available means, and continues to prevent Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine until the Israeli aggression ceases and the blockade on Gaza is lifted,” Abdulsalam said.
Earlier, the United Nations had warned such sanctions could harm Yemen’s economy, particularly commercial imports of essential items. The world body says more than 18 million people need help in Yemen.
The administration of former President Donald Trump added Ansarullah to two lists designating them as terrorists a day before Trump’s term ended. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revoked the designations soon after taking office in 2021.
Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they won’t stop retaliatory strikes, which have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.