US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump said the Houthis in Yemen have agreed to halt attacks on shipping, in surprise remarks at the White House in which he gave no further details.

Trump’s comments coincided with Israeli strikes that destroyed Yemen’s main airport on the capital Sanaa. 

“The Houthis have announced… that 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,” Trump said.

“They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s… the purpose of what we were doing,” the US president said, adding that the information came from a “very, very good source.”

Mediator Oman, which neighbours Yemen, has since said the US and the Houthis have agreed to a ceasefire. 

Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said that “following recent discussions and contacts… with the aim of de-escalation, efforts have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides”.

“Neither side will target the other… ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping” in the Red Sea, he added in a statement.

Attacks by the Houthis, which are aimed at punishing Israel for its war in Gaza, have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal – a vital route that normally carries about 12% of the world’s shipping traffic.

The United States and some of its allies began carrying out strikes against the Houthis in early 2024 under president Joe Biden, and Trump’s administration launched renewed attacks starting on 15 March.

The Pentagon said last week that US strikes had hit more than 1,000 targets in Yemen since mid-March in an operation that has been dubbed “Rough Rider.”

Today in Yemen, Israeli strikes “completely destroyed” the air port in the capital Sanaa, an airport official said.

Three people were killed and 38 wounded in Israeli strikes, Houthis media has said.

Casualties were reported from strikes on Sanaa airport, a cement factory, a power station and the Air area of the capital, Al-Masirah TV and Saba news agency said, citing the Houthi health ministry.

“Three planes out of seven belonging to Yemenia Airlines were destroyed at Sanaa airport, and Sanaa International Airport was completely destroyed,” the official said.

The strikes come two days after an attack on Israel’s Ben Gurion airport by the Yemeni rebel group. The Houthis, who control large swaths of the country, said they were imposing a blockade on Israeli air traffic. 

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said that Iran, which backs the Houthis, would “bear the full consequences” for any attack by its Yemeni allies.

“This is… a warning to the head of the Iranian octopus: You are directly responsible for any attack by the Houthi arm of the octopus against the State of Israel – and you will bear the full consequences,” Katz said, shortly after Israel struck the airport in Yemen’s capital Sanaa.

Before the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that led to the retaliatory war on the Palestinian territory, Yemen was already in the midst of a humanitarian crisis left in the wake of a devastating civil war that lasted roughly a decade. 

The war saw Iran’s main regional rival Saudi Arabia, with US and UK backing, bomb the region’s poorest country extensively. More than 370,000 people were killed directly and indirectly due to the conflict. 

With reporting from AFP

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