Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
While Trump declared the truce agreement a US victory, Ansar Allah said that Washington contacted them in order to “avoid drowning in the mountains of Yemen”.
Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement reached a ceasefire deal with the United States on Wednesday, May 7, according to Oman, which mediated the negotiations.
The deal stipulates the halt of Ansar Allah’s attacks on US ships in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, and an end to US aggression on Yemen. However, it does not prevent the Yemeni movement from launching attacks on Israel.
“Following recent discussions and contacts conducted by the Sultanate of Oman with the United States and the relevant authorities in Sana’a, in the Republic of Yemen, with the aim of de-escalation, efforts have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides,” Omani Foreign Minister, Badr Albusaidi, wrote on X.
“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping,” the minister added.
Peoples Dispatch spokes to a member of the Communist Party of Jordan, Dr. Emad Al-Hatabeh, to discuss the ceasefire, which he described as a “sudden development in the war in the Red Sea.”
Dr. Emad Al-Hatabeh indicated that “both the US and Oman didn’t comment on Ansar Allah’s missiles targeting Israel, especially that this agreement was reached shortly after a Yemeni missile reached Ben Gurion airport, near the occupied city of Lydda (also known as Lod).”
As per Al-Hatabeh’s analysis, “important questions about this agreement are left without answers. Taking into consideration the Omani role in the American – Iranian negotiations, is the ceasefire in the Red Sea part of the deal? Another question will arise from this assumption, did America give up some of Israel’s interests in order to reach an agreement with Iran? Where does this agreement leave Netanyahu’s government, especially after Ansar Allah’s spokesman told Reuters that the agreement doesn’t include Israel.”
Ansar Allah says the US contacted them seeking a truce
One day before Oman announced that the deal was sealed, US President Donald Trump alluded that a ceasefire agreement was about to be reached, claiming that Ansar Allah agreed to stop the fight with the US because they “capitulated”.
“They just don’t want to fight, and we will honor that and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated,” Trump said from the White House on Tuesday, May 6.
“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. So I think that’s very, very positive,” he added.
Although Trump bragged about the deal, presenting it as a US victory, analysts suggest that it was Ansar Allah that forced the world’s greatest military superpower to the negotiating table, after paralyzing US naval traffic off the Yemeni coast.
Ansar Allah’s chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdulsalam, confirmed during an interview with Almasirah TV channel, that the movement “did not make any request to the Americans to hold ceasefire talks”. Abdulsalam asserted that, on the contrary, the movement recently received US requests and messages seeking a truce, via the Sultanate of Oman.
The Yemeni official pointed out that US endeavors to reach a ceasefire with Ansar Allah were a great disappointment to Israel. “The Israelis have endured great disappointment after the stance of the US, which tried to walk away and avoid drowning in the mountains of Yemen,” he said.
However, Abdulsalam clarified that Ansar Allah is still “assessing this US position so that the facts on the ground do not contradict its statements”. He further warned that in the event that the US “would not abide by the agreement in any way”, the movement “will respond”.
Abdulsalam considered the deal “a success to be added to Yemen’s credit, as it enhances a situation that would leave the “usurper entity” [Israel] in a situation of loneliness, in confrontation with the great popular and military stance led by Yemen on behalf of the Arab and Islamic nation.”
The ceasefire was announced two months after Trump ordered a large-scale aerial campaign against Yemen on the pretext of protecting US shipping, air, and naval assets and to restore “navigation freedom” from Ansar Allah’s attacks. Trump’s order followed Ansar Allah’s decision to resume a ban on Israeli ships due to Israel’s continuous blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Yemen threatens Israel with a devastating and painful response for attacking Sana’a airport
While Ansar Allah agreed to a truce with the US, it vowed to escalate its operations against Israel as long as its blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza is not lifted.
In response to Israel’s aggression on Sana’a International Airport on Tuesday, that destroyed terminal buildings and caused USD 500 million in damage, Yemen’s Supreme Political Council Chairman, Mahdi al-Mashat, threatened that “Sanaa’s response will be devastating, painful, and beyond what the Israeli enemy can endure.”
“From this moment onward, stay in your shelters or leave for your homelands immediately. Your failed government will no longer be able to protect you,” Al-Mashat warned Israeli people.
Moreover, the Yemeni senior official reaffirmed that no aggression will deter Yemen from its “rightful decision” to support the people of Palestine “until the genocide ends and the siege on Gaza is lifted.”
The Yemeni Armed Forces’ spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, also confirmed in a televised statement late Wednesday, that the movement will continue its ban on Israeli ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, alongside the comprehensive aerial blockade on Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.
Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
Leeds May Day march. Photo: Neil Terry Photography