The leader of the Houthis in Yemen, Abd al-Malik al-Houthi, announced their willingness to release one of the captured Saudi pilots, along with four officers and soldiers, in exchange for the Saudi authorities releasing their detainees from the Palestinian Hamas movement.
In a televised speech, Houthi denounced the pursuit of the Saudi authorities, whom the Palestinians accuse of "supporting a terrorist entity", which means the Palestinian resistance.
These Saudis were captured by the Houthis in earlier times, and the total number of Saudi prisoners with the group is unknown.
Hamas had announced in earlier times that Riyadh was trying a number of its members, on the pretext of "belonging to a terrorist organization and collecting funds."
On the other hand, the Houthi leader called on the Saudi-Emirati coalition to "clearly stop the aggression and siege," and demanded that Saudi Arabia "respect the right of neighborliness."
Al-Houthi said, "The coalition was working to stir internal strife in Yemen to exploit it to weaken the people." He stressed that the coalition's efforts were unsuccessful thanks to the awareness of the Yemenis of what was being tried against them.
Al-Houthi extended an invitation to the Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and his government to return to Yemen, noting that "the coalition of aggression humiliates and traitors and oppresses them, and the situation in which they are not calling them to stick to it", according to his expression.
There was no immediate comment from the Saudi side or Hamas on the matter.
Yemen is suffering for the sixth year from a continuous war between the forces loyal to the government, supported by an Arab military alliance led by the Saudi neighbor on the one hand, and between the Houthis backed by Iran and the control of provinces including the capital, Sanaa, since 2014, on the other hand.