Trump announces US truce with Houthis, who say their strikes on Israel will continue
President says rebel group agreed to cease attacks on US vessels, in what Omani mediator says will ensure Red Sea freedom of navigation; Israel caught off guard by announcement
US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the US would stop bombing Yemen’s Houthis after the Iran-backed group had agreed to stop interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East.
The announcement did not mention the ongoing Houthi attacks on Israel, and a spokesman for the Yemeni rebel group pledged that such strikes would continue. Israeli officials told Hebrew media outlets that Washington did not give Jerusalem advance notice of the announcement, and that Israel was surprised by it.
After Trump made the announcement, Oman revealed that it had mediated the ceasefire deal under which neither side will target the other, including US vessels in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait.
CNN cited people familiar with the matter as saying Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff had worked with the Omanis over the past week to broker the US-Houthi ceasefire. The sources said the ceasefire was also meant to help build momentum in the Omani-mediated Iran nuclear talks, which Witkoff has also been leading on behalf of the Trump administration.
During a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said the Houthis had informed the White House that “they don’t want to fight anymore.”
“They said, Please don’t bomb us anymore and we’re not going to attack your ships,” said Trump. “And I will accept their word, and we are going to stop the bombing of the Houthis effective immediately.”
BIG BREAKING ????
Trump: "The Houthis have announced that they don't want to fight anymore. They just don't want to fight, and we will honor that, and we will stop the bombings. They have capitulated… They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore." pic.twitter.com/tSvBsxwEz6
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) May 6, 2025
“They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that was the purpose of what we’ve been doing,” Trump said. “I think that’s very positive. They were knocking out a lot of ships sailing beautifully down the various seas.”
Trump, who is set to visit the Middle East next week, also said he had a “very, very, very big announcement to make… like as big as it gets… and it’s really positive.”
The president said the announcement could come Thursday, Friday or Monday, before he departs for Saudi Arabia. He declined to say what the announcement would be about.
Trump’s administration has been negotiating trade deals with a number of countries, and has been reported to be planning a $100-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Speaking to Time magazine last month, Trump also predicted Saudi-Israel normalization could come “very quickly.”
Pleased to reiterate that todays news about the situation in the Red Sea means that diplomatic efforts have lead to the end to the conflict between the US and Ansar Allah in Yemen. They will no longer target each other, ensuring freedom of navigation for international commercial…
— Badr Albusaidi – بدر البوسعيدي (@badralbusaidi) May 6, 2025
Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, a defense official confirmed that the US military had been instructed to halt attacks on the Houthis on Monday evening.
Asked later Tuesday about Houthi pledges to continue attacks against Israel, Trump responded, “I’ll discuss that if something happens.”
“I don’t know about that, but I know one thing: They want nothing to do with us, and they let that be known through all of their surrogates,” Trump told reporters.
The head of Yemen’s Houthi Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat said earlier Tuesday that the group would continue its attacks “in support of Gaza.”
He advised Israelis to “remain in shelters because their government will not be able to protect them.”
The head of Yemen’s Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, meanwhile, tweeted that the US halt of “aggression” against Yemen will be evaluated while also suggesting that his group will continue attacking Israel.
Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham, the Republican US senator from South Carolina, indicated in an X post that Israel would be on its own defending itself from Iran’s proxies.
Following recent discussions and contacts conducted by the Sultanate of Oman with the United States and the relevant authorities in Sana'a, in the Republic of Yemen, with the aim of de-escalation, efforts have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides. In the…
— Badr Albusaidi – بدر البوسعيدي (@badralbusaidi) May 6, 2025
“As to the Houthis continuing to attack Israel — they do so at Iran’s own peril. Without Iran, the Houthis do not possess the capability to attack America, international shipping or Israel,” Graham wrote on X. “To my friends in Israel, do what you have to do to protect your airspace and your people. It is long past time to consider hitting Iran hard. It wouldn’t take much to put Iran out of the oil business.”
The Houthis — whose slogan calls for “death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews” — have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea since November 2023, saying that they were doing so in a show of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza amid the war there, which erupted when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Houthi attacks on commercial shipping largely ceased six months ago, though this was after many international companies rerouted their vessels to avoid the Red Sea. Attacks on Israel and other military targets had also continued in recent months.
The US intensified strikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis earlier this year to stop attacks on Red Sea shipping. Rights activists have raised concerns over civilian casualties.
The US military has said it has struck more than 1,000 targets since the start of its operation in Yemen, known as Operation Rough Rider, on March 15. The strikes, the US military said, have killed “hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders.”
Tensions rose further between Israel and the Houthis in recent days, after a Houthi ballistic missile landed in the grounds of Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, prompting sweeping Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port and other Houthi infrastructure targets on Monday. The strikes were followed on Tuesday by further attacks that the Israeli military said had “completely disabled” Sanaa International Airport in the Houthi-controlled capital.
Under former US president Joe Biden’s administration, the US and Britain retaliated with air strikes against Houthi targets in an effort to keep open the crucial Red Sea trading route – the path for about 15% of global shipping traffic.
After Trump entered office in January, he decided to significantly intensify air strikes against the Houthis. The campaign came after the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden following the collapse of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal in March.
On April 28, a suspected US airstrike hit a migrant center in Yemen, and Houthi TV says 68 people were killed in one of the deadliest attacks in six weeks of intensified US strikes.
The Times of Israel Community.