STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is holding into its second week, and for the moment, seems even to apply hundreds of miles outside of Gaza. Houthi fighters who control much of Yemen are apparently observing this ceasefire. At the height of the war, you will recall these allies of Hamas were conducting attacks on ships that passed by Yemen's coast. NPR's Greg Myre is following all this from Tel Aviv. Hey there, Greg.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK, how committed are the Houthis to this ceasefire?
MYRE: Well, they are observing it with a caveat. The Houthi say they're scaling back attacks as long as the truce holds. The Houthi say they may still fire on ships affiliated with Israel, but, you know, given the complex nature of ship ownership, it's often difficult to tell who owns a particular ship.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
MYRE: The Houthis have waged this missile campaign against commercial ships through the Red Sea off the west coast of Yemen throughout the Gaza War. They said they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians. We'll have to see how it actually plays out, but no reports of Houthi missile attacks over the past 10 days.
INSKEEP: OK. Useful to hear that, but didn't the Houthis also take and hold some hostages?
MYRE: Yeah, that's right. Twenty-five crew members on a ship called the Galaxy Leader were released from Yemen recently, given over to neighboring Oman. Oman negotiated the release, and this was announced last week. The Houthi sees this crew way back in November 2023, just a month after the Gaza War began, so this crew had been held for more than a year.
INSKEEP: OK, so they're not firing at ships. They've released the hostages. Does this mean the United States Navy can scale back its effort to defend commercial ships in the Red Sea nearby?
MYRE: Yes, Steve. I mean, this was a very substantial operation by the Navy, and it may be a little too early to know for sure if these ships attacks have permanently stopped. But if we do reach that point, the Navy is likely to pull back or withdraw. But in another development, President Trump has reinstated the Houthis on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations. Trump put them on the list in his first term. Then President Biden took them off, citing humanitarian concerns in Yemen, and now Trump has put them back on. Here's Michael Knights at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
MICHAEL KNIGHTS: It might seem a little odd that the Houthis are taking these deescalatory steps at the same time the Trump administration takes an escalatory step. But I think the Trump administration will views the Houthis as a longer-term threat that needs to be contained and eventually removed.
INSKEEP: So when we step back from all these news items you've informed us about, what does this mean, ultimately, for shipping traffic in the Red Sea?
MYRE: Yeah, this is one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. Traffic had been down as much as two-thirds. It was starting to pick up recently. It should now pick up pretty rapidly according to Knights.
KNIGHTS: We can already see oil tankers beginning to come back into the Red Sea in larger numbers.
MYRE: So he says oil companies have a long history of operating in this volatile region, and are therefore more willing to accept risks than, say, regular container ships.
INSKEEP: What happens for the world economy if those container ships come back in the pre-war numbers?
MYRE: Yeah, the big winner would be Egypt, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars in fees because ships weren't using Egypt's Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea and Mediterranean. Most have been taking a much longer route, an expensive route, around the southern tip of Africa. And overall, the Houthis carried out about 100 ship attacks. They sank two of them and killed several crew members.
INSKEEP: OK. And the attacks have stopped for now. NPR's Greg Myre. Thanks so much.
MYRE: Sure thing, Steve.
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