Key points: Yemen’s Houthi movement has signalled an apparent pause in its Red Sea attacks while a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire holds, though it stopped short of a formal ceasefire. An undated Houthi letter warns the group will resume strikes if Gaza is attacked again. The maritime campaign has reportedly killed at least nine sailors, sunk four vessels and disrupted the Red Sea–Suez trade route, costing Egypt and global trade significant revenue. Separately, the Houthis are holding dozens of UN staff in Sanaa, a separate source of diplomatic tension.
Houthis Signal Pause in Red Sea Attacks as Gaza Ceasefire Holds — For Now
Key points: Yemen’s Houthi movement has signalled an apparent pause in its Red Sea attacks while a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire holds, though it stopped short of a formal ceasefire. An undated Houthi letter warns the group will resume strikes if Gaza is attacked again. The maritime campaign has reportedly killed at least nine sailors, sunk four vessels and disrupted the Red Sea–Suez trade route, costing Egypt and global trade significant revenue. Separately, the Houthis are holding dozens of UN staff in Sanaa, a separate source of diplomatic tension.
05:14 AM, 11/12/2025Conflict
Houthis appear to halt Red Sea strikes while Gaza truce holds
Yemen’s Houthi movement appears to have signalled — indirectly — that it has paused attacks on Israel and commercial shipping in the Red Sea while a United States-brokered ceasefire in Gaza remains in effect. The group has not issued a formal public declaration ending its maritime campaign, and its leaders warn the pause could be reversed if hostilities in Gaza resume.
The Houthis launched a series of strikes on vessels transiting the Red Sea corridor beginning in late 2023, saying the actions were intended to show solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s offensive in Gaza. The attacks targeted ships the group considered linked to Israel or its allies and struck one of the world’s busiest maritime routes.
“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, says.
The letter — undated and published online to Hamas’s Qassam Brigades — suggests the group has paused maritime operations for now, but stops short of a formal cessation. Observers say the statement functions as a conditional truce: the Houthis will resume attacks if they judge Gaza is attacked again.
A fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire came into effect in Gaza on October 10. There have been reports accusing Israel of breaching the arrangement, with subsequent strikes that the article says killed more than 240 Palestinians in later incidents. Since October 2023, the wider war has reportedly resulted in at least 69,182 Palestinian deaths and more than 170,700 wounded; the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks in Israel left about 1,139 people dead and roughly 200 taken captive.
The Houthi maritime campaign has inflicted human and material damage: reports attribute at least nine mariner deaths to the strikes and describe four ships as sunk. The attacks substantially disrupted shipping through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal — a vital artery that, before the conflict, handled about $1 trillion worth of goods annually.
The strikes hit Egyptian revenues from the Suez Canal, which generated roughly $10 billion for Egypt in 2023 — an important source of foreign currency for a struggling economy. The International Monetary Fund said in July that the Houthi attacks cut Suez-related foreign-exchange inflows by about $6 billion in 2024.
Separately, Houthi authorities in Sanaa detained dozens of United Nations staff after raiding a UN-run facility, the UN confirmed in late October. The Houthis have accused some detainees of spying for Israel or of links to an Israeli strike that killed Yemen’s prime minister; the UN strongly denies those allegations. The UN said 36 employees were initially arrested after the Israeli attack and that at least 59 UN personnel are being held. On October 31, Houthi officials said dozens of detained Yemeni UN staff would be put on trial and could face penalties under Yemeni law, including the death penalty.
Ten years of conflict have left Yemen — already one of the poorest countries in the Arab world — in what the UN describes as one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises, with millions reliant on aid to survive. The temporary pause in Red Sea attacks, if sustained, would ease shipping risks; but the conditional nature of the Houthis’ statement means the maritime threat could quickly return if the Gaza truce collapses.