Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is calling for the firing of federal workers who are reportedly planning to walk out on their jobs in protest of U.S. policy on Israel and Gaza.

He suggested the House of Representatives would help ensure that employees who protest on Tuesday are punished.

‘Any government worker who walks off the job to protest U.S. support for our ally Israel is ignoring their responsibility and abusing the trust of taxpayers. They deserve to be fired,’ Johnson stated on X Sunday.

‘Oversight Chairman Comer and I will be working together to ensure that each federal agency initiates appropriate disciplinary proceedings against any person who walks out on their job.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the House Oversight Committee for further comment. 

Johnson was responding to a report by Middle East-focused outlet Al-Monitor that said hundreds of federal employees from 22 government agencies pledged to participate in a walkout on Tuesday. 

The group reportedly staging the protest, Feds United for Peace, is doing so in opposition to the Biden administration’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. It’s reportedly advertising the event as a ‘Day of Mourning’ to mark 100 days since Israel’s invasion of Gaza began.

Fox News Digital found an Instagram account called ‘Feds United for Peace’ advertising a ‘Day of Mourning’ for Gaza on Jan. 16. 

According to one post, they label themselves ‘a group of federal employees representing a range of federal agencies who believe it is our patriotic duty and moral imperative to urge our government to support calls for a ceasefire, and support humanitarian aid and access for Gaza.’

The issue of Israel has been driving a wedge between establishment Democrats and hardline leftists since Hamas militants invaded the country on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said that more than 24,000 people have been killed so far in Israel’s response.

U.S. participation in the conflict escalated last week when it partnered with the U.K. to lead a coalition air attack on Houthi positions in Yemen.

Progressives like Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Cori Bush, D-Mo., blasted the Biden administration for skirting Congress for the bombings. 

A U.S.-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden was hit by a missile fired from Yemen on Monday, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. Central Command identified the vessel as the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier. The ship is owned by Eagle Bulk, a Stamford, Connecticut-based shipping firm.

‘On Jan. 15 at approximately 4 p.m. (Sanaa time), Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and struck the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged, U.S.-owned and operated container ship,’ U.S. Central Command said on X. According to the statement, there were no reported injuries or significant damage. The vessel is continuing its journey.

This is the 30th attack on commercial vessels by the Houthi’s since November 19th.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), which oversees Mideast waters, also confirmed Monday’s attack, saying it happened some 110 miles southeast of Aden. 

UKMTO has received a report of an incident 95NM South East of Aden, Yemen. Master reports port side of vessel hit from above by a missile.’

‘Authorities are investigating. Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO,’ it added.

Since the U.S. strikes on Thursday night and the one on Friday night, Houthi rebels have fired at least three ballistic missiles and one cruise missile toward international shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. 

These attacks include the Houthi’s firing one ballistic missile into the Red Sea on Friday, Jan. 12th. No ships were impacted. 

On Sunday, Jan 14th, a U.S. fighter jet intercepted a cruise missile that Houthi militants fired toward the USS Laboon in the southern Red Sea.  

In addition to the attack on the Gibraltar Eagle, U.S. Central Command said a second missile was fired from Yemen earlier in the day. It did not enter commercial shipping lanes. 

‘Earlier in the day, at approximately 2 p.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. Forces detected an anti-ship ballistic missile fired toward the Southern Red Sea commercial shipping lanes. The missile failed in flight and impacted on land in Yemen. There were no injuries or damage reported,’ the statement read.

No group claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack.

Attacks against U.S. forces and commercial vessels have increased in the months since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7. 

This report is developing and will be updated. 

Fox News’ Liz Friden and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Republican candidates will begin squaring off Monday in Iowa as caucusgoers and voters start deciding which GOP nominee will take on President Biden this November. 

The Republican primary race has been underway for almost a year and has included large-scale attacks as candidates have jockeyed to close the gap between themselves and former President Trump, who has maintained commanding leads in polls.

But despite Trump’s frontrunner status, he has not been the most targeted GOP candidate. Instead, the candidates battling behind him have set their sights on each other, attempting to cut down and distance themselves from their challengers.

The race has featured extensive cash poured into political maneuvering, including attack ads. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been the most targeted GOP candidate in that regard as voters begin selecting the Republican presidential nominee.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, DeSantis has faced nearly $48 million in negative independent expenditures, including TV and radio ads. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has been attacked the second most, with almost $24 million in negative independent expenditures going toward her.

Haley and DeSantis, in particular, have targeted each other relentlessly as they attempt to solidify themselves as the Trump alternative.

Trump, meanwhile, has faced $23 million in negative independent expenditures, filings show. President Biden has seen $21 million in such spending aimed at him.

Iowans will head to more than 1,600 caucus sites Monday night while braving frigid below-zero temperatures to cast ballots in the lead-off contest of the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race.

House Republicans signaled they would subpoena Hunter Biden again in the near future after the president’s son opened the door to a deposition with impeachment investigators. 

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell over the weekend stating that they would be willing to subpoena him a second time if that meant his cooperation in their probe.

‘The committees welcome Mr. Biden’s newfound willingness to testify in a deposition setting under subpoena,’ the letter said. 

‘Although the Committee’s subpoenas are lawful and remain legally enforceable, as an accommodation to Mr. Biden and at your request, we are prepared to issue subpoenas compelling Mr. Biden’s appearance at a deposition on a new date in the coming weeks.’

It comes as House Republicans prepare a chamber-wide vote on holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for skipping out on an earlier subpoena for a closed-door deposition.

But a source familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital that Comer could recommend pumping the breaks on that contempt vote if Hunter Biden and his lawyers genuinely cooperate and work out a make-up deposition date.

Lowell wrote to the committee chairs on Friday arguing that the initial subpoena was invalid because it was issued before the House voted to formally authorize its impeachment inquiry last month.

‘If you issue a new proper subpoena, now that there is a duly authorized impeachment inquiry, Mr. Biden will comply for a hearing or deposition,’ Lowell’s letter said. ‘We will accept such a subpoena on Mr. Biden’s behalf.’

Hunter Biden and his lawyers had offered to come in for a public hearing, something the GOP committee chairs said they would be open to after a closed-door session had taken place.

Instead, he opted to make a surprise appearance outside the U.S. Capitol on the morning of his scheduled deposition, criticizing Republicans and their probe.

‘They’ve invaded my privacy, attacked my wife and children,’ Hunter Biden said at the time. ‘Tried to dehumanize me and embarrass and damage my father.’

He again made a surprise visit to the Capitol last week as the House Oversight Committee met to advance his contempt resolution.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said in an interview Monday that Dr. Anthony Fauci will not go down favorably in history over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the former presidential medical advisor should be behind bars for purportedly lying to Congress in previous hearings.  

‘His actions in covering up the origins of the virus will go down in history as probably one of the most egregious and infamous public health decisions in our lifetime,’ Paul told Fox News Digital in an interview Monday. 

‘Every step of the way, Fauci has publicly protested and said ‘we never funded any gain function research in Wuhan,’ but if you look at his private emails, it tells a different story,’ Paul said. 

Gain-of-function research involves manipulating the genes of microorganisms to give them new functions or characteristics. In the context of COVID-19, gain-of-function research found that the virus could have originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and involved experiments that enhanced its transmissibility, or pathogenicity.

In previous congressional testimony, Fauci refuted claims that the National Institutes of Health had financed gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab — the epicenter of the pandemic that originated in late 2019 and would soar to pandemic proportions in 2020.

Fauci testified for the second time last week in private before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which is investigating the origins of the virus. 

The committee’s chairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, was reportedly perturbed that Fauci was unable to recall decisions or circumstances from the early stages of the outbreak, which claimed the lives of 1.1 million Americans, he wrote in a statement.

‘Lying to Congress is a felony punishable up to five years in prison. When he came and told me that he did not find gain-of-function research and move on — that was a bald-faced lie. I gave him a chance to correct the record a month later when he came back to the committee, and he refused to do so,’ Paul said.

‘And to this day, he has been dissembling and really trying to point blame away from him, but that’s a felony,’ he said. 

Fauci also testified that the lab leak hypothesis — which was often suppressed — was not a conspiracy theory and that the policies and mandates he promoted may increase vaccine hesitancy in the future, Wenstrup wrote in a statement Wednesday. 

Wenstrup said Fauci played semantics with the definition of a ‘lab leak’ while acknowledging that a lab leak was possible.

Wenstrup said the admission came nearly four years after the publication of the ‘Proximal Origin’ paper that attempted to vilify and disprove the lab leak hypothesis.

Fauci also denied allegations that he visited the CIA during the pandemic or influenced the CIA’s investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

‘Dr. Fauci’s transcribed interview revealed systemic failures in our public health system and shed light on serious procedural concerns with our public health authority,’ wrote Wenstrup, a physician of over 30 years.

‘It is clear that dissenting opinions were often not considered or suppressed completely. Should a future pandemic arise, America’s response must be guided by scientific facts and conclusive data.’

Paul, who is also an eye doctor, said the reason he ‘continues to dwell’ on Fauci’s handling of the pandemic is because he aims ‘to pass legislation that creates an independent commission that will regulate gain-of-function research and try to prevent some of the more dangerous research from ever occurring.’

‘There was no science,’ Paul said of the COVID-19 guidelines like social distancing and quarantine. ‘This was sort of medieval type of conclusions. And I think history will judge him harshly for doing this.’

Fox News Digital has reached out to Fauci for comment.

Fox News’ Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.