At the White House, Trump said the rebels had “capitulated” after a seven-week US bombing campaign that left 300 dead, according to an AFP tally of Houthi figures.
The rebels’ political leader Mahdi al Mashat did not comment on the accord but promised a “painful” response to deadly Israeli strikes in retaliation for missile fire at Israel’s main airport.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdelsalam told the rebels’ Al-Masirah television channel that any US action would garner a response.
“If the American enemy resumes its attacks, we will resume our strikes,” he said.
“The real guarantee for the accord is the dark experience that the US has had in Yemen,” he added.
Mashat said attacks on Israel “will continue” and go “beyond what the Israeli enemy can withstand”.
Houthi rebels have been attacking Israel and merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since late 2023, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians as the Gaza war rages.
The Yemeni rebels had paused their attacks during a recent two-month ceasefire in the Gaza war.
But in March, they threatened to resume attacks on shipping over Israel’s aid blockade on the Gaza Strip, triggering a response from the US military, which began hammering the rebels with near-daily air strikes.
“The Houthis have announced … that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight,” Trump said.
“And we will honour that, and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated,” he added.
“They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s … the purpose of what we were doing.”
The Pentagon said last week that US strikes had hit more than 1,000 targets in Yemen since mid-March.
“COMPLETELY DESTROYED”
Trump’s comments came hours after Israeli warplanes knocked the airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa out of action in raids that killed three people, according to the Houthis.
The Sanaa airport suspended all flights until further notice, its director said on Wednesday, after it sustained “severe damage” in the Israeli strikes.
Israel’s military said “fighter jets struck and dismantled Houthi terrorist infrastructure at the main airport in Sanaa, fully disabling the airport”.
The strikes came after a Houthi missile gouged a crater near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on Sunday.
