WASHINGTON — In the Oval Office on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said Houthi rebels in Yemen have agreed to stop attacking merchant vessels and other ships following a weekslong, daily bombing campaign by the U.S. that the military says struck the small country in southern Arabia more than 1,000 times and killed hundreds since it began in March.
“We had some very good news last night,” Trump said. “The Houthis have announced … or they’ve announced to us at least, that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight. And we will stop the bombings. And they have capitulated, 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. So that’s just news we just found out about that.”
The announcement of the apparent cessation in violence, which came during an unrelated meeting with newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, was sparse on details and was revealed after Israel claimed its airstrikes fully disabled the international airport in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa. Those strikes came after a missile launched by the Houthis struck an access road by Israel’s main airport over the weekend, temporarily halting flights and commuter traffic.
The U.S. government has been bombing Yemen on and off since the early years of the Obama administration, but Trump ordered an intensified campaign of bombing the Houthis, who control much of the country, including Sanaa, shortly after returning to office. The bombings in recent years, under the Biden and Trump administrations, have been in retaliation for Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden that the rebel group says were in response to Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians since October 2023.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the strikes were addressing a “freedom of navigation issue” and that the Houthis were threatening global shipping.
“The job was to get that to stop, and if it’s going to stop, we can stop,” Rubio said after being prompted by Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
Trump is headed to the region next week, with stops in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar and previewed “a very big announcement” that will be “very positive.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
