Egypt Daily News – The Houthi group in Yemen said on Wednesday, through its chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdulsalam, that the ceasefire agreement with the United States does not include operations against Israel. This statement came a day after President Trump announced a halt to targeting the Houthis after they pledged to stop attacks on American ships.
The Houthi group confirmed on Wednesday that the ceasefire agreement with the United States does not include operations against Israel, meaning that their attacks on ships, which have caused disruption to global trade, will not stop completely.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would halt targeting the Houthis in Yemen, stating that the Iran-aligned group had agreed to stop attacking American ships.
Following Trump’s statement, Oman announced that it had mediated an agreement to stop attacks on American ships.
There have been no reports of Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea since January.
Mohammed Abdulsalam, the chief negotiator for the Houthi group, told Reuters on Wednesday that “the agreement does not involve Israel in any way, what happened was with the Americans with Omani mediation, and the cessation will be about targeting American ships, as long as they announce the cessation and actually commit to it, our position is defensive, and the response will stop.”
The Houthi movement has withstood years of aerial bombardment by a Saudi-led coalition during the devastating civil war in the country. While tensions may have cooled between the United States and the Houthis, the agreement does not rule out attacks on ships or other targets linked to Israel.
The United States intensified its strikes on the Houthis this year to stop attacks on ships in the Red Sea. Human rights activists have expressed concerns about civilian casualties in the U.S. airstrikes.
Trump said about the Houthis during a meeting in the Oval Office with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, “They said: please, don’t bomb us anymore, and we will not attack your ships. I’ll take their word for it, and we will stop bombing the Houthis immediately.”
Gaza War
The Houthis have been launching rockets and drones towards Israel and ships in the Red Sea since Israel began its military assault on the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip, following an attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The U.S. military acknowledged that it had targeted over a thousand sites since the current operation in Yemen began on March 15.
The U.S. military reported that the strikes had killed “hundreds of Houthi fighters and many of their leaders.”
Tensions escalated since the start of the Gaza War but have intensified further since a missile launched by the Houthis landed near Ben Gurion Airport in Israel on Sunday, prompting Israel to respond with airstrikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah on Monday.
The Israeli military also carried out an airstrike on the main airport in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, on Tuesday, marking the second such attack in two days. On Wednesday, Israeli media reported that a missile launched from Yemen towards Israel fell outside the borders.
Under former U.S. President Joe Biden, the U.S. and the U.K. carried out airstrikes on Houthi targets in an attempt to keep the shipping route through the Red Sea open, as it handles about 15% of global trade.
After Trump took office in January, he decided to intensify airstrikes on the Houthis after they announced the resumption of attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Gulf of Aden.
On April 28, an airstrike, suspected to be American, targeted a migrant center in Yemen. A TV channel affiliated with the Houthis reported that the strike killed 68 people.
