US to halt Yemen bombing

United States President Donald Trump said his country would halt its daily bombing of Yemen following an Oman-brokered ceasefire deal with the Arab country's Houthi militia, but senior group members said it would evaluate the situation.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a member of the Revolutionary Committee in Sanaa, said Trump's announcement "will be evaluated on the ground first".

"It is a victory that separates American support … and a failure for Netanyahu, who must resign," said al-Houthi, referring to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Houthis said later on Wednesday that they would continue targeting Israeli ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden despite the ceasefire deal with the US.

"The waterways are safe for all international ships except Israeli ones," Abdulmalik Alejri, a member of the Houthi political bureau, told AFP.

"Israel is not part of the agreement, it only includes American and other ships," he said.

Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, also said there would be no retreat from supporting Gaza, no matter the cost and vowed that the strikes would continue.

Trump told White House reporters on Tuesday during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that the Houthis have allegedly said they "did not want to fight anymore" and that the US "will honor that".

Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Albusaidi affirmed Trump's announcements, saying in a series of posts on X that with the aim of de-escalation, efforts have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides.

The conditions reportedly include that in the future, neither side will target the other, including US vessels in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping.

But according to Israeli media reports, Netanyahu had been blindsided by Trump's announcement.

The Israeli military carried out an airstrike on Yemen's main airport in Sanaa on Tuesday, its second attack in two days, killing three people. The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, said the strike was carried out in response to the Houthis' attack on Israel's Ben Gurion Airport.

In a statement on Tuesday, Netanyahu reiterated that whoever attacked Israel "will pay the price".

Intensified fighting between the US and Houthis stems from US support for Israel in Gaza and Houthi support for Palestinians against Israeli aggression.

In November 2023, just a month after Hamas' surprise attack on Israel, the Houthis hijacked a commercial ship in the Red Sea and have since conducted missile and drone attacks on commercial ships.

'Temporary truce'

Nagapushpa Devendra, a West Asia analyst and research scholar at the University of Erfurt in Germany, said the US ceasefire with the Houthis is a "temporary truce", since it does not address the root causes of the Yemen civil war such as governance, humanitarian failure or regional competition.

Moreover, she said, blindsiding Israel indicated that the US no longer guarantees a united front in the region. Similarly, Tel Aviv's airstrike on Sanaa airport demonstrates an increasing willingness to act independently.

"Notably, the ceasefire is limited to naval incidents. It is to protect the seaborne oil transits in the Red Sea and Bab-al Mandab Strait in order to ensure uninterrupted flow of resources and reassure its Gulf partners that their economic arteries remain open," said Devendra, adding that airstrikes and land operations "remain a fair game".

Khaldoon Abdulla, a nonresident senior research fellow and China Study Circle coordinator at the Asia Middle East Center for Research and Dialogue in Kuala Lumpur, told China Daily that the Houthis' operations in the Red Sea serve three main objectives.

First, he said, is to strengthen their internal legitimacy by aligning themselves with the Palestinians. Second, to secure their strategic lifeline on Yemen's western coast and third, to align with Iran's broader regional strategy.

"Conversely, the United States has pursued four primary goals. First, to reestablish deterrence. Second, to weaken Iran's regional influence. Third, to provide Israel with greater strategic depth in the Red Sea. And fourth, to secure long-term geopolitical gains in the Bab al-Mandab," said Abdulla.

jan@chinadailyapac.com