New Zealand designated the entirety of Hezbollah as a terrorist entity, in an adjustment to its 2010 decision to list just the military wing.
The decision was made following advice from New Zealand police that cited decades of terrorist activity, most recently the arrest of two Hezbollah-affiliated people who were allegedly planning an attack on a Jewish community in Brazil.
Israel has been engaged in a ground offensive in southern Lebanon since early October after it escalated operations against Hezbollah in response to nearly a year of daily rocket and drone attacks targeting northern Israel following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
Wellington also listed Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a terrorist group.
According to local reports, the designation came after police advised that the Houthis’ consistent attacks on ships in the Red Sea in the past year constituted terrorist activity.
New Zealand is the 30th country to list the entire Hezbollah organisation as a terrorist entity.
“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 the organization has knowingly undertaken terrorist activity,” New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said about the designations, adding that this was determined to be the case for Hezbollah and the Houthis.
New Zealand’s decision makes it a criminal offense to carry out property or financial transactions with Hezbollah or the Houthis or provide them with material support. It also freezes any of the organisations’ assets in New Zealand.
