US, British Commercial Ships Cautiously Return To Red Sea As Gaza Truce Holds

American and British vessels are cautiously returning to the Red Sea as the Gaza truce and prisoner exchange deal continues to hold. Starting last week Yemen’s Houthi movement made clear that it would honor the ceasefire, and refrain from attacking international vessels in the Red Sea so long as Israel bides by the ceasefire.

However, a key exception is that Houthis will only continue attacking Israeli vessels. This intent to scale back pro-Palestine maritime operations, which has seen drones and missiles lobbed against foreign ships for many months, is translating to less incidents over this past week.

The Yemeni Houthi army’s Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) announced Tuesday, “JMIC assesses that as the peace agreement progresses and vessels and infrastructure remain untargeted, improved stability is expected; however, the risk in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden remain elevated.”

Ansarallah representatives first revealed on January 19 that attacks would be scaled back given Hamas has agreed to the ceasefire deal with Israel. 

According to Lebanon-based The Cradle, “Since 19 January, six US and UK vessels have transited the Red Sea safely. Despite this, major international shipping firms such as Danish company Maersk, Swiss company MSC, and Japanese company Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd have said that they will not immediately resume journeys despite the Yemeni assurances.”

For the past year, international shipping companies been forced to take the much longer and costlier route around the Africa continent to avoid the Red Sea.

The Houthis have attacked more than 100 international commercial vessels, and have even targeted US and British military warships, including aircraft carriers. The Houthis have also shot down multiple American MQ-9 Reaper drones.

As we reported last week, ocean lines have said they are watching developments in the Red Sea but have offered no timeline to resume regular schedules there. Among major lines, only CMA CGM has maintained a schedule on the Suez Canal route.

“The situation in the Suez Canal remains fluid and the security situation is unclear,” said MSC in a statement to FreightWaves. “In order to guarantee the safety of our seafarers and to ensure consistency and predictability of service for our customers, MSC will continue to transit via the Cape of Good Hope [around Africa] until further notice.”

The cost of transit through the Suez Canal has greatly ratcheted, and the avoidance of the strategic waterway to and from the Mediterranean has also cost Egypt tens of billions of dollars.