- The radio station claims that the campaign raised $295,000
- The fundraising came after Hezbollah called on its supporters in March to donate money
DUBAI: A Houthi affiliated radio station released a video showing four men standing in front of wads of cash claimed to be for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
In the video, which has been circulated on social media this week, the director-general of Houthi-affiliated radio station Sam FM, Hamoud Mohammad Sharaf, is seen leading a chant, praising a fundraising campaign for the Iran-backed Lebanese militia group, Hezbollah.
“From Yemen’s faith to Lebanon’s Resistance! God is great! Death to America! Death to Israel! Curses upon the Jews! Victory for Islam,” the men chant.
The Houthi Sam FM radio station held a fundraising campaign for Hezbollah called “Goodness of Yemen” between May 20 and June 30, 2019, during Ramadan.
The radio station claims that the campaign raised $295,000 (74,010,000 Yemeni rial).
The fundraising came after Hezbollah called on its supporters in March to donate money as it came under increasing pressure from sanctions intended to isolate it financially.
The United States, United Kingdom, member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Argentina deem Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Yemeni political analyst, Fatima Alasrar, wrote in May that the Houthis’ fundraising for Hezbollah is not surprising, as the militia’s ties to the group are “undeniable.”
Military support for the Houthis from Iran and Hezbollah “comes in different ways” and is “well documented,” Alasrar says, referencing a 2015 Financial Times article where two senior Hezbollah sources said that “hundreds of Lebanese and Iranian trainers and military advisers are in Yemen already.”
Meanwhile, a 2014 article by Reuters quoted a senior Iranian official saying that “the Quds Force, the external arm of the Revolutionary Guard, had a “few hundred” military personnel in Yemen who trained Houthi fighters.”
“This campaign to raise funds to Hezbollah is beyond a gesture of solidarity and commitment, the Houthis are proving themselves a reliable partner,” Alasrar told Arab News.
“The Houthis have never cared to raise funds or direct it inwards towards their own starving population,” she added.
An estimated 80 percent of the population – 24 million people – require some form of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 14.3 million who are in acute need, according to the United Nations