Yemen’s Houthis appear to pull back from Red Sea shipping attacks

Yemen’s Houthi rebels seem to have indirectly confirmed they have stopped their attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea as the US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza continues to hold.

The Houthis have carried out a military campaign of attacking ships through the Red Sea corridor in what they describe as solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s war on Gaza.

The group has launched numerous attacks on vessels in the Red Sea since late 2023, targeting ships they deem linked to Israel or its supporters.

However, in an undated letter to Hamas’s Qassam Brigades, recently published online, the Houthis have indicated that they have halted their attacks. The group has not formally announced it has ceased attacking ships in the region.

“We are closely monitoring developments and declare that if the enemy resumes its aggression against Gaza, we will return to our military operations deep inside the Zionist entity [Israel], and we will reinstate the ban on Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas,” the letter from Yusuf Hassan al-Madani, the Houthi armed forces’ chief of staff, reads.

A shaky United States-brokered ceasefire took effect in Gaza on October 10. Israel has repeatedly violated the brokered deal, killing more than 240 Palestinians in continued strikes on Gaza. Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 69,182 Palestinians and wounded more than 170,700 since October 2023. A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, and about 200 were taken captive.

The Houthis’ maritime campaign has killed at least nine mariners and seen four ships sunk, disrupting shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion of goods passed each year before the war.

The attacks greatly disrupted transits through Egypt’s Suez Canal, which links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The canal remains one of the top providers of hard currency for Egypt, providing it $10bn in 2023 as its wider economy struggles. The International Monetary Fund in July said the Houthi attacks “reduced foreign exchange inflows from the Suez Canal by $6bn in 2024”.

More recently, Yemen’s Houthi authorities detained dozens of United Nations employees after raiding a UN-run facility in the capital Sanaa, the UN confirmed in late October. The Houthis have alleged that the detained UN staff have spied for Israel or had links to an Israeli air strike that killed Yemen’s prime minister, without providing much evidence. The UN has strenuously denied the accusations.

The UN said at the end of October that a total of 36 UN employees were arrested after Israel’s attack. It says that at least 59 UN personnel are being held by the group.

On October 31, Houthi officials said the government would put dozens of the detained UN staff – who are Yemenis and could face the death penalty under the nation’s laws – on trial.