Houthi soldiers march during a funeral procession for Houthi fighters killed in recent fighting against government forces in Marib province, in Sanaa, Yemen February 17, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah/File Photo

i24 News – The Houthi rebel government in Yemen on Wednesday passed a law banning any process of normalization with Israel and criminalizing any contact with the Jewish state or its citizens, the Israel Hayom daily reported.

The move follows a law passed in Iraq last week that prohibits any normalization with Israel, including business ties, making them punishable by life in prison or the death penalty.

A statement by Houthi Prime Minister Abdulaziz bin Habtoor said the decision was motivated by the fact that “Palestine is the main and overriding issue of the Muslim world.”

“We stand with the Palestinian nation and its struggle in the face of Israeli threats against the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the occupied city of al-Quds,” Habtoor said, using the Arabic name for Jerusalem.

According to Arab media reports, he also noted that the “flagrant Israeli provocations and violations” of Al-Aqsa — Islam’s third holiest site after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia — are “part of attempts of the Israeli regime to put itself in a position of victory” in the wave of the Abraham Accords of 2020.

On Sunday, a senior member of the Iran-backed Ansar Allah (the administration that regulates the daily lives of millions of Houthis) urged the Arab world to boycott products made in countries with ties to Israel.

“As Arabs and Muslims, we must apply the boycott of products produced by countries that support the Zionist regime,” Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told Al-Mayadeen TV, a Lebanese media outlet affiliated with Hezbollah.

According to Iran’s PressTV news agency, he also warned that “the United States, Britain and countries that are Israel’s main supporters will suffer greatly from an embargo campaign.”