Houthis say US 'backed down' and Israel not covered by ceasefire
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David Gritten
BBC News
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Reuters
The Houthis' top negotiator said their support for the Palestinian people in Gaza "will not change"
A senior Houthi official has rejected US President Donald Trump's claim the Yemeni armed group "capitulated" when agreeing a ceasefire deal, saying the US "backed down" instead.
"What changed is the American position, but our position remains firm," chief negotiator Mohammed Abdul Salam told Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV.
Mediator Oman said the US and Houthis had agreed to "no longer target each other", after seven weeks of intensified US strikes on Yemen in response to Houthi missile and drone attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea.
Abdul Salam also said the deal did not include an end to attacks on Israel, which has conducted two rounds of retaliatory strikes on Yemen this week.
The Houthis' support for the Palestinian people in Gaza "will not change", he added.
The Iran-backed group has controlled much of north-western Yemen since 2014, when they ousted the internationally-recognised government from the capital, Sanaa, and sparked a devastating civil war.
Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted dozens of merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have sunk two vessels, seized a third, and killed four crew members.
They have said they are acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have claimed - often falsely - that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.
The Houthis were not deterred by the deployment of Western warships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to protect merchant vessels last year, or by multiple rounds of US strikes on military targets ordered by former President Joe Biden.
On 15 March, Trump ordered an intensification of the air campaign against the Houthis and threatened that they would be "completely annihilated".
At the end of April, the US military said it had struck more than 800 targets, including command-and-control facilities, air defence systems and advanced weapons manufacturing and storage facilities. It also said the strikes had killed hundreds of Houthi fighters and "numerous Houthi leaders", without naming them.
Houthi-run authorities have said the strikes have killed dozens of civilians, but they have reported few casualties among the group's members.
At the White House on Tuesday, Trump announced that the Houthis had said they "don't want to fight anymore".
"They just don't want to fight, and we will honour that and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated," he said. "But, more importantly, we will take their word."
"They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore and that's what the purpose of what we were doing."
Later, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi wrote on X: "In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping."
Reuters
Several aircraft were reportedly destroyed in Israeli air strikes on Sanaa's airport on Tuesday
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