UN says Yemen's warring parties agree to 2-month truce

Yemen's warring sides have accepted a two-month truce, starting with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the U.N. envoy to Yemen said Friday.

The envoy, Hans Grundberg, announced the agreement from Amman, Jordan, after meeting separately with both sides in the country's brutal civil war in recent days. He said that he hoped the truce would be renewed after two months.

The agreement comes after a significant escalation in recent weeks that saw Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels claim several attacks across the country’s borders, targeting the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he hoped the truce would pave the way toward peace, but added, “we know that these agreements are always fragile."

The truce is to start on Saturday, the first day of Ramadan, and will also allow for shipments of fuel to arrive in the Yemen's key port city of Hodeida and for passenger flights to resume from the airport in the capital, Sanaa.

U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said the warring sides agreed to halt all offensive military, air, ground and maritime operations inside Yemen and across its borders, starting at 7 p.m. Saturday.

The agreement came after the Saudi-led coalition, which has been battling the Houthis in Yemen since 2015, began observing a unilateral cease-fire on Wednesday — an offer that was rejected by the rebels. Saudi Arabia had proposed the unilateral cease-fire as part of talks it hosted aiming to resolve the war in Yemen. But the Houthis did not attend the talks because they were not held on neutral territory.

Last Saturday, the Houthis also announced their own unilateral initiative that included a three-day suspension of cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia, as well as fighting inside Yemen. Their announcement came shortly after they claimed attacks on a key Saudi oil facility in the Red Sea city of Jiddah, ahead of a Formula One race in the kingdom.

Inside Yemen, many front lines have largely stagnated, particularly in the key government-held city of Marib, as the war has become more stalemated.

On Friday, in a Twitter post, Mohammed Abdel-Salam, the spokesman and chief negotiator of the Houthis, welcomed the cease-fire.

Yemen’s war began in September 2014, when the Houthis swept into the capital, Sanaa, from their northwestern stronghold in the Arab world’s poorest country. The Houthis then pushed into exile the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, elected in 2012 as the sole candidate after the long rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh.

A Saudi-led coalition, including the UAE, entered the war in March 2015 to try and restore Hadi’s government to power. But the war, which evolved into a proxy conflict, stretched into long bloody years, pushing much of Yemen's people to the brink of famine.

The United Nations and others had been pushing the coalition and rebels to stop the fighting for Ramadan, as has tenuously occurred in past years.

“This is the result of fairly painstaking work” by Grundberg and other diplomats, Haq said. He said the envoy called the truce “a first and long-overdue step” toward ending the fighting that has killed more than 150,000 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project figures. That figure includes both fighters and civilians.

During the two-month truce, the Saudi-led coalition will allow 18 vessels carrying fuel into the port of Hodeida, and two commercial flights a week from and to the Yemeni capital to Jordan and Egypt, according to a document of the truce obtained by The Associated Press.

After the truce takes effect, the U.N. envoy will call for both sides to convene to agree on opening roads around Taiz and other provinces, the document said. Taiz, which remains partially held by the forces fighting on behalf of the internationally recognized government, has been blockaded by the Houthis for years.

There are hopes the truce could build momentum for further steps towards peace, though past attempts at cease-fires have repeatedly fallen through. The terms of this latest agreement bear a resemblance to a 2018 peace deal that brought an end to fighting in Hodeida but failed to bring wider peace.

“It must have taken a phenomenal effort to get here,” said Peter Salisbury, Yemen expert at the International Crisis Group. “But it’s going to take an even more monumental effort to turn the agreement into a reality.”

Guterres, speaking to reporters at the United Nations in New York, urged the parties to adhere to the truce, renew it after two months and work toward a political settlement.

“Today must be the start of a better future for the people of Yemen,” he said.

The Iran-backed Houthis and Yemen's internationally recognized government have also said they were working on a deal to release over 2,220 prisoners of war, including Hadi's brother and a former defense minister.

Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A ship traveling in the Gulf of Aden came under attack Thursday, officials said, the latest assault carried out by Yemen's Houthi rebels over Israel's ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The attack comes after the U.S. military said early Thursday an allied warship shot down a Houthi missile targeting a vessel the day before near the same area. The Houthis claimed that Wednesday assault, which comes after a period of relatively few rebel attacks on shipping in the region over Israel’s ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In Thursday's attack, a ship was targeted just over 25 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Aden, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

The captain “reports a loud bang heard and a splash and smoke seen coming from the sea,” the UKMTO said. “Vessel and all crew are safe.”

The attack was also reported by the private security firm Ambrey.

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the attack late Thursday, identifying the ship the rebels tried to target as the MSC Darwin.

European Union forces separately shot down a drone launched from Houthi territory on Thursday, Gen. Robert Brieger said. Separately on Wednesday, the British warship HMS Diamond began the first in the Royal Navy to shoot down a missile since 1991 when it destroyed a Houthi missile targeting merchant ships.

The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, seized one vessel and sank another since November, according to the U.S. Maritime Administration.

Houthi attacks have dropped in recent weeks as the rebels have been targeted by a U.S.-led airstrike campaign in Yemen and shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has declined because of the threat. American officials have speculated that the rebels may be running out of weapons as a result of the U.S.-led campaign against them and firing off drones and missiles steadily in the last months.

However, Wednesday's attack was the first one by rebels in some time. An explosion struck some 130 kilometers (80 miles) southeast of Djibouti in the Gulf of Aden, the UKMTO said.

Early Thursday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said the explosion came from a coalition warship shooting down the missile likely targeting the MV Yorktown, a U.S.-flagged, owned and operated vessel with 18 U.S. and four Greek crew members.

“There were no injuries or damage reported by U.S., coalition or commercial ships,” Central Command said.

Saree claimed that attack but insisted without evidence that the missile hit the Yorktown. Saree also claimed the Houthis targeted another ship in the Indian Ocean, without providing proof. The Houthis have made repeated claims that turned out to not be true during their yearslong war in Yemen.

The Houthis have said they will continue their attacks until Israel ends its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians there. The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage.

Most of the ships targeted by the Houthis have had little or no direct connection to Israel, the U.S. or other nations involved in the war. The rebels have also fired missiles toward Israel, though they have largely fallen short or been intercepted.

In this photo provided by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), a Sea Viper missile is launched from HMS Diamond to shoot down a missile fired by the Iranian-backed Houthis from Yemen, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a large barrage of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea Wednesday. (LPhot Chris Sellars/MoD Crown copyright via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), members of the HMS Diamond's Bridge team shoot down a missile fired by the Iranian-backed Houthis from Yemen, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a large barrage of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea Wednesday. (LPhot Chris Sellars/MoD Crown via AP)