Houthis Detain 11 UN Staff, Calling Them ‘Spies’ For US & Israel

Last Saturday, Israel conducted its major airstrikes on Sanaa which killed the Houthi prime minister, Ahmed al-Rahawi, among other top officials in the Houthi government. The operation has been widely reported as constituting the biggest single loss of Houthi leadership. 

The following day, Sunday, Houthi militants stormed the offices of two United Nations agencies in the capital, specifically the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF), according to UN leadership and various international reports.

These offices ere “entered by local security forces” and some WFP and UNICEF staff members were detained. This week it was confirmed that eleven of these UN staff members have still been in Houthi detention.

A fresh statement from the Iran-aligned Shia militant group has accused the detained UN aid workers of being spies for the US and Israel.

“Those who were arrested from among the United Nations employees are accused of spying for the American and Israeli aggression,” an official Houthi statement said. “Whoever has the accusations against them confirmed will be referred to trial.”

Yemeni security sources have further rounded up dozens of other people “on suspicion of collaborating with Israel” they recently told AFP. 

This has been a long-running problem, as other UN workers have already long been in detention in Yemen:

The United Nations envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said in a statement: “I strongly condemn the new wave of arbitrary detentions of UN personnel today in Sanaa and Hodeida… as well as the forced entry into UN premises and seizure of UN property.”

He said that “at least 11 UN personnel were detained” and demanded that they be “immediately and unconditionally” released.

The Houthis were already detaining 23 UN personnel, some since 2021 and 2023, he added. In January, the Huthi rebels detained eight UN workers.

The WFP still says it is “urgently seeking additional information” concerning those newly detained.

Israel officials and media described that Israeli intelligence had monitored the gathering of Houthi leaders in real time on Saturday, just before the strike. 

#Houthis Claim Detained #UN Staff Are “Spies” Involved in Assassination of Their Governmenthttps://t.co/SD8fh5UjgH pic.twitter.com/XnvsJ3aqBG

— Yemen Monitor-EN (@YeMonitorEN) September 3, 2025

Like in Iran, it is very probable that Mossad and IDF military intelligence do have assets and spies inside Yemen. However, it’s unknown whether any would be embedded in UN programs, but this is for sure a tactic which has been used by various foreign intel services in the past – utilizing NGOs to penetrate a country.