The government of New Zealand has officially designated Hezbollah, both its military and political wings, as well as the Houthi rebel group in Yemen as terror organizations.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon also re-designated Somalia’s Al-Shabaab and Kurdish PKK as terror organizations, while removing the designation of Basque group ETA lapse.
“It's very simple. For any organization to be deemed a terrorist organization under New Zealand legislation, we have to have evidence, and we go through a number of tests under our legislation, that organization has knowingly undertaken terrorist activity,” Luxon said.
“This is the case before the four that I've designated today.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar congratulated the decision on Hezbollah and the Houthis: "I congratulate the government of New Zealand on its decision today to designate Hezbollah and the Houthis (Ansar Allah) as terrorist organizations.
"New Zealand has now become the 30th country in the world to designate Hezbollah, in its entirety, as a terrorist organization," he added.
Not everyone took well to the decision, the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa called the move "wrong at every level" claiming that the two groups were "only trying to stop what was happening in Gaza."
According to the organization, it was "especially galling when the New Zealand government, which has condemned every act of Palestinian resistance, has refused to condemn Israel for any of its shocking war crimes across the Middle East."