Trump announces deal to stop bombing Houthis, end shipping attacks

By Steve Holland, Jarrett Renshaw, Jaidaa Taha and Menna AlaaElDin

WASHINGTON/CAIRO (Reuters) - President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday the U.S. will stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen, saying that the Iran-aligned group had agreed to stop interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East.

After Trump made the announcement, Oman said it had mediated the ceasefire deal, marking a major shift in Houthi policy since the start of Israel's war in Gaza in October 2023.

Under the agreement, neither the U.S. nor the Houthis would target the other, including U.S. vessels in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, Oman said in a statement.

The statement from Oman did not mention whether the Houthis had agreed to stop attacks on Israel. The head of Yemen's Houthi Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, said the group would continue to support Gaza and that such attacks would continue.

"To all Zionists from now on, stay in shelters or leave to your countries immediately as your failed government will not be able to protect you after today," Houthi-run Al Masirah TV cited him as saying.

Separately, the head of Yemen's Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, said the U.S. halt of "aggression" against Yemen would be evaluated, according to a post on X.

The U.S. intensified strikes on Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis this year, to stop attacks on Red Sea shipping. Rights activists have raised concerns over civilian casualties.

"They said please don't bomb us any more and we're not going to attack your ships," Trump said of the Houthis during an Oval Office meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. "And I will accept their word, and we are going to stop the bombing of the Houthis effective immediately."

Qatar and Kuwait welcomed the ceasefire deal in separate statements on Tuesday, expressing hopes for the step to secure freedom of navigation.

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 U.S. military has said it has struck more than 1,000 targets since its current operation in Yemen, known as Operation Rough Rider, started on March 15. The strikes, the U.S. military said, have killed "hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders."

HOUTHI, ISRAELI STRIKES

Tensions have been high since the Gaza war began, but have risen further since a Houthi missile landed near Israel's Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, prompting Israeli airstrikes on Yemen's Hodeidah port on Monday.

The Israeli military carried out an airstrike on Yemen's main airport in Sanaa on Tuesday, its second attack in two days on Iran-aligned Houthi rebels after a surge in tensions between the group and Israel.

Under former President Joe Biden's administration, the U.S. 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.

Trump did not say whether Britain had agreed also to the ceasefire.

After Trump became U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. strikes.

(Reporting By Steve Holland, Jarrett Renshaw, Doina Chiacu; additional eporting by David Brunnstrom, Idrees Ali and Ryan Jones in Washington and Jaidaa Taha and Menna Alaa El Din in Cairo; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)