Attachments
Author: Luca Nevola
6 May 2025 – The Oval Office is packed, cameras flashing as United States President Donald Trump fields questions beside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Mid-sentence, Trump drops the news: “The Houthis have announced they don’t want to fight anymore … we will stop the bombings … they have capitulated.” The terms of the deal emerge a few hours later — not from Washington, but from Muscat. The Sultanate of Oman, the quiet broker, breaks the silence: “neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.”
Meanwhile, the Houthis deliver a defiant addendum: They will continue their attacks on Israel. On 8 May, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, leader of the Houthi movement, addresses the nation. He reaffirms support for Gaza and dismisses the ceasefire as a side note. “The American announcement,” he says, “is not the result of surrender … this is the clowning that Trump is known for.”
This exchange presents the established fact of the US-Houthi ceasefire — though not without some political theater. Each side pushed its own version of the story, highlighting the contradictions that have shaped the Red Sea crisis from the outset. The US and its allies leaned hard on talk of “freedom of navigation.” The Houthis, by contrast, framed their actions as resistance to Israeli aggression on Gaza. But in this hall of mirrors, public statements obscured more pragmatic interests, and the conflict followed a logic driven less by principles than by strategic considerations.
Houthi operations in the Red Sea and against Israel began on 19 October 2023 and have continued to the present day (see map in the PDF). Though often portrayed as a single crisis, the Red Sea conflict actually involves three distinct fronts: Houthis vs. Israel, Houthis vs. commercial shipping, and Houthis vs. the US. Over the past year and a half, the group has launched more than 520 attacks — targeting at least 176 ships and carrying out 155 strikes on Israeli territory. The US has responded with a two-pronged approach: an international maritime defense initiative, Operation Prosperity Guardian, and two air campaigns, Operation Poseidon Archer and Operation Rough Rider, aimed at degrading Houthi military capabilities. Together, these operations have resulted in 774 airstrike events and at least 550 victims between 12 January 2024 and 6 May 2025.
Contrasting rhetoric and facts reveals the concealed agendas of both the US and the Houthis. US air attacks in Yemen have not fully degraded the Houthis’ long-range drone and missile arsenal. And, in the logic of asymmetric warfare, the Houthis do not need many weapons — just a few well-placed “golden shots,” or high-impact strikes, can still shake up global shipping and trigger a new regional crisis. In the end, the real strength of Houthi deterrence is not the scale of their arsenal, but their ability to sustain a heightened perception of risk. It is clear that — despite public declarations — the Red Sea standoff is far from over.