Amid Attacks on Israel-Linked Shipping, Ansarallah Says It Remains Committed to Truce with U.S.

“Our military operations remain directed exclusively at Israel," Muhammad al-Bukhaiti told Drop Site. "Should the United States reengage in the conflict, any escalation will be met in kind.”

On July 6, the Yemeni group Ansarallah released a dramatic video showing the sinking of a cargo ship called Magic Seas, a Greek owned ship with Liberian flags that the group attacked with a combination of small arms, RPGs, missiles, drones, and unmanned surface vessels. The next day another video showed an attack on the Eternity C, which also had Liberan flags and was hit with a sustained missile assault that killed several crew members, before sinking the vessel.

The ships struck by Ansarallah—also known as the Houthis—had links to Israel or were headed to Israeli ports, and were attacked as part of an ongoing blockade imposed on Israeli shipping by Ansarallah.

The Trump administration quickly issued a statement condemning “the unprovoked Houthi terror attack on the civilian cargo vessels” and the threats posed to “freedom of navigation and to regional economic and maritime security” by the group, raising the prospect of a renewed conflict between the U.S. and Ansarallah.

“The United States has been clear: we will continue to take necessary action to protect freedom of navigation and commercial shipping from Houthi terrorist attacks, which must be condemned by all members of the international community,” read the State Department statement.

But, despite the provocative nature of the attacks, there is no indication that Ansarallah has violated its existing ceasefire agreement with the U.S. or that it plans to resume attacks against U.S. shipping in the region. The truce between Ansarallah and the Trump administration, which was mediated by Oman and signed in May, strictly covered direct strikes between the two entities. After weeks of fighting, the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in which the Yemeni group would agree to stop targeting U.S. ships in the Red Sea in exchange for an end to the U.S. bombing campaign.

A handout screen grab captured from a video provided by the Houthi group media center shows the targeting of the commercial vessel named "Eternity C cargo ship" sinking after it was targeted by a missile of the Houthi group's recent attack on July 8, 2025, in the Red Sea, Yemen. Handout photo by Houthi Media Center/Getty Images.

That peace agreement between the U.S. and Ansarallah has held firm; no U.S. ships have been attacked since the terms were agreed upon. But the attacks on the Magic Seas and Eternity C, as well as ongoing Ansarallah ballistic missile attacks against Israel, indicate that the group is serious about maintaining its separate commitment to continuing attacking Israel, as well as imposing a blockade on Israeli-linked shipping, until the blockade and genocide of Gaza comes to an end.

Houthi leaders say they while they will continue to respect the ceasefire with the U.S., they will maintain their blockade on Israel-linked ships so long as the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip continues. Muhammad al-Bukhaiti, an Ansarallah spokesperson and Politburo member, told Drop Site News that the goal of their operations was to ensure “the safeguarding of the freedom of navigation for all,” referencing Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid and commerce to Gaza’s port.

“Our military operations remain directed exclusively at Israel. Should the United States reengage in the conflict, any escalation will be met in kind,” said al-Bukhaiti.

In a public address after the maritime attacks, Ansarallah leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi stated that the operations showed that their declared blockade on Israeli ports remains “unwavering and ongoing.” Al-Houthi reiterated that any company with links to Israel would be barred from transiting Yemen’s waterways so long as the war continued.

“What happened is a clear lesson to all maritime transport companies,” he said. “Any company that transports goods for the Israeli enemy will be dealt with at this level of firmness.”

In response to questions from Drop Site about whether the “necessary action” to stop attacks on Israeli shipping referenced in their statement would include a resumption of U.S. military intervention, a State Department spokesperson did not answer the question directly, but said that the U.S. was focused on “disrupting the Houthis’ ability to generate funds to support their terrorist activities against our partners and the internationally recognized government of Yemen.”

Officials who have dealt with Ansarallah agree that the escalated attacks on Israel-linked merchant shipping this month—some of which, according to video footage of the attacks, were carried out using advanced anti-ship missiles—represent a continuation of their policy of maintaining the blockade, while showing that they are unbowed by Israeli attacks, rather than any violation of the preexisting agreement with Washington.

Jamal Benomar, the former UN special envoy to Yemen, said that the recent attacks, while targeting Israeli-linked ships, still did not appear to show any violation of the truce agreement with the U.S.

“My understanding is that the deal the Houthis made with Trump was simply not to attack American ships. They never agreed to stop targeting ships linked to Israel—and they have continued to do so,” he added. “The deal was a mutual non-aggression agreement, not a blanket promise to avoid attacking any vessel. Given that they've been repeatedly bombed by the Israelis, it's likely they now feel compelled to respond.”

“The agreement came about because Trump and [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth repeatedly stated that if the Houthis stopped striking U.S. ships, the U.S. would stop striking them. That mutual understanding laid the groundwork for the talks in Oman, and the eventual ceasefire agreement,” said Erik Sperling, executive director of the advocacy organization Just Foreign Policy and a former congressional staffer working on Yemen policy. “The United States was not bargaining to protect Liberian-flagged ships heading to Israeli ports. The Houthis have consistently stated that their goal is to pressure Israeli imports in order to gain leverage and bring about a ceasefire in Gaza.”

“The claim that recent attacks violate the truce agreement is a deliberate distortion—pushed by those looking for a pretext to drag the U.S. back into the war, or to give Trump political justification to re-escalate,” said Sperling.

“Any Escalation Will Be Met in Kind”

The war which Ansarallah initiated in solidarity with the Gaza Strip has come at significant cost to Yemen. The truce that the U.S. negotiated with Ansarallah never extended to Israel, which has continued bombing Yemeni civilian infrastructure, including civilian airports, ports, and power plants. Ansarallah has limited its attacks to shipping believed to be linked to Israeli ports or companies rather than carrying out generalized attacks on Red Sea transit—a critical maritime artery accounting for 15% of global trade, by some estimates.

While Ansarallah remains quiet about its combatant losses, announcements of “martyrdom notices” from affiliated media have continued throughout the campaign, albeit without mention of senior leaders.

The U.S. lost three manned fighter aircraft during the campaign, as well as dozens of unmanned aerial drones shot down by the group’s air defenses. According to public reports, on several occasions during the U.S. air campaign, aircraft carriers and advanced F-35 fighter jets had to take evasive maneuvers to avoid Ansarallah attacks, raising the prospect of potentially catastrophic U.S. losses were the war to continue.

The attacks have also highlighted the seemingly paradoxical nature of the group’s operations. Over well over a decade of fighting, including punishing air campaigns by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the U.S., United Kingdom, and now Israel, the capacity of Ansarullah to continue fighting is not only holding steady but apparently increasing.

“Historically, the more you bomb the Houthis the more they become resilient,” said Benomar, a former United Nations diplomat who served for several years as the UN’s special envoy to Yemen. “When I first encountered them, they were a ragtag militia. So it is very impressive that they managed to build this arsenal of new weapons and technology to increase their capabilities. They may receive spare parts from outside, but they have significant capacity in terms of domestic engineering and design.”

Benomar was one of the few international officials to meet directly on multiple occasions with Ansarullah leader Abdelmalik al-Houthi. In response to the motive for the shipping attacks, and other attacks against Israeli-linked targets, he rejected the claim that Ansarallah was escalating at the direction of Iran, which fought a brief war with Israel late last month, stating that the group’s calculations were ultimately determined by conditions in Gaza, and their stated ideological commitment to the Palestine cause.

“The Houthis are allied with Iran but they are not proxies of Iran. They have their own agendas and decision making mechanisms,” he said. “The way they are portrayed in the western press is that Iran presses a button and the Houthis start firing. That is simply not the case. On the issue of Palestine, they’re not just being opportunistic. Palestine is a core part of their ideology.”

Escalating Operations

The mechanics of the recent attack shed more light on Ansarallah’s ability to continue carrying out operations of increasing complexity despite years of bombing attacks against the group.

Magic Seas, a bulk carrier transporting iron and fertilizer from China to Turkey, was attacked off Yemen’s coast on July 6, eventually sinking under a barrage of attacks from the group. Brigadier General Yahya Sarea, spokesperson for Ansarallah’s military forces, said the vessel was targeted using two unmanned boats, five ballistic and cruise missiles, and three drones for “violating the entry ban to the ports of occupied Palestine,” referring to Israeli ports under sanction. Saree added that the attack came after the ship allegedly ignored warnings, and that the crew was allowed to disembark.

Hours later, Israel responded by targeting three ports in Hodeida, following earlier missile strikes into Israel. The Israeli Air Force also attacked the Galaxy Leader, a bulk carrier seized by the Houthi group in December 2023 due to its Israeli ownership ties. Israel’s defense minister claimed the Houthis had installed a radar system on the Galaxy Leader “and have been using it to track vessels in the international maritime arena to facilitate further terrorist activities.”

Within 24 hours, Ansarallah attacked again, striking Eternity C. In a new statement, Saree said that one unmanned boat and six ballistic and cruise missiles were deployed in the attack, again citing a violation of the Israeli port ban as justification. Four crew members were killed, and an unknown number were taken by Ansarallah, who “responded to rescue a number of the ship’s crew, provide them with medical care, and transport them to a safe location,” according to Sarea’s statement.

Although critics have accused Ansarallah of attacking ships in the Red Sea at random, Lloyd’s List, a maritime intelligence service, reported that both Magic Seas and Eternity C were part of commercial fleets that had regularly called at Israeli ports over the past year.

This week, the group again fired ballistic missiles at Israel, with at least one reported impact. Periodic Ansarallah ballistic missile fire has also continued to deplete Israel’s stores of costly missile interceptors—an increasingly problematic strategic issue as the U.S. faces supply pressures defending Israel, Ukraine, while providing for its own missile defense needs.

A State Department spokesperson condemned acts that “continue to endanger the lives of seafarers and harm economies across the region.”

But, al-Bukhaiti told Drop Site, “The lifting of the ban imposed on the Zionist entity is contingent upon the lifting of the ban imposed on Gaza.” Until then, he said, hostilities between Yemen and Israel will continue.