Ceasefire deal does not include Israel, Houthis say

Yemen’s Houthis say a ceasefire deal between them and the US does not include sparing Israel, as nearly 50 people were killed in the bombing of a Gaza school.

A ceasefire deal between Yemen’s Houthis and the United States does not include sparing Israel, the group says, suggesting its shipping attacks that have disrupted global trade and challenged world powers will not come to a complete halt.

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday the US would stop bombing the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, saying that the group had agreed to stop attacking US ships.

After Trump made the announcement, Oman said it had mediated the ceasefire deal to halt attacks on US vessels.

There have been no reports of Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea area since January.

“The agreement does not include Israel in any way, shape or form,” Mohammed Abdulsalam, the chief Houthi negotiator, told Reuters on Wednesday.

“As long as they announced the cessation (of US strikes) and they are actually committed to that, our position was self-defence so we will stop.”

The Houthis said they targeted Israel with drones, the group’s military spokesperson said in a televised address later on Wednesday.

He reiterated they would also carry out strikes against the US if Washington resumes its attacks on Yemen.

The Israeli military earlier in the day said it intercepted a drone that was launched from the east, without identifying its exact location. Israeli media, however, reported a missile which was launched from Yemen at Israel fell outside the country’s borders.

While tensions may have eased between the US and the Houthis, a resilient force that withstood years of heavy Saudi-led bombing in Yemen’s civil war, the agreement does not rule out attacks on any other Israel-linked vessels or targets.

Iran welcomed the “end of the US aggression” on Yemen, its Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Wednesday, thanking Oman for its efforts in this regard.

The US intensified strikes on the Houthis this year, to stop attacks on Red Sea shipping. Rights activists have raised concerns over civilian casualties.

The Houthis have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea since Israel began its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza after the Palestinian militant group’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The US military has said it has struck more than 1000 targets since its current operation in Yemen, known as Operation Rough Rider, started on March 15. The strikes, the US military said, have killed “hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders”.

Under former 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 per cent of global shipping traffic.

After Trump became US president 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.

On April 28, a suspected US airstrike hit a migrant centre in Yemen, and Houthi TV says 68 people were killed.

Meanwhile, at least 48 people were killed in Israeli air strikes on a school that housed families displaced by the conflict and which was located close to a crowded market and restaurant in Gaza City, local health authorities said.

Medics said two strikes targeted the Karama School in Tuffah, a suburb of Gaza City, killing 15 on Wednesday. Later in the day, an Israeli strike near a restaurant and market in the city killed at least 33 people, including women and children, medics said.

There was no immediate Israeli comment.

By: Mohammed Ghobari /Reuters