The Houthis have signaled that they have paused their maritime attacks in the Red Sea after nearly two years of bombardment that forced vessels to reroute around Africa.
The Yemeni militant group indicated that they would end the attacks on the condition that September’s Israel-Hamas ceasefire holds.
“We are closely monitoring developments and declare that if the enemy resumes its aggression against Gaza, we will return to our military operations deep inside the Zionist entity, and we will reinstate the ban on Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas,” a letter from Yusuf Hassan al-Madani, the Houthi military’s chief of staff, reads.
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The state of the ceasefire has always been on rocky footing, especially after one was already in place from January to March before the truce was broken. Due to the lack of security guarantees in place, container shipping firms have largely avoided the area and the Suez Canal, even with the gateway openly pushing to bring the carriers back.
“I would urge a bit of caution at such an interpretation just yet,” said Lars Jensen, CEO of container shipping consultancy Vespucci Maritime, in Wednesday update on LinkedIn. “When hostilities resumed in Gaza, the Houthis also resumed their activities.”
Jensen noted that although we are more than a month into the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, there have been smaller incidents “which shows it to be somewhat fragile.”
The most recent attack occurred on the Netherlands-flagged commercial cargo ship Minervagracht on Sept. 29, killing one crew member and wounding another.
“Based on the developments earlier this year, it appears premature to interpret the Houthi ceasefire as a sign of an imminent return by the shipping lines,” Jensen said. “If that was to be the case it would require that the shipping lines have changed their risk tolerance compared to their view just eight months ago.”
Ocean carriers have largely avoided the Red Sea and the neighboring Gulf of Aden since the attacks began in late 2023, even after the Houthis had essentially suspended their onslaught in the first half of 2025.
The container shipping company has often opted to sail around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, which adds 10 to 14 days of ocean travel time in most instances.
According to recent data from the IMF and Oxford University’s PortWatch, the seven-day moving average number of vessels transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait was 31 on Sunday, in line with averages since January 2024. That represents less than half the level of traffic in November 2023, a month before the mass diversions began.
Major carriers including Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) have reiterated that they plan to continue avoiding the Red Sea, while CMA CGM has stated that it will not resume transits on a large scale.
CMA CGM, which unlike its peers has selectively tested the waters with an escort from the French Navy since the Houthis began their attacks, has recently upgraded to sailing ultra-large container ships into the Suez Canal.
On Nov. 7, the Suez Canal hosted CMA CGM’s 17,859-20-foot equivalent unit (TEU) Benjamin Franklin, the largest such vessel to navigate the passage in two years. That vessel departed from Southampton, U.K. on Oct. 25 and is scheduled to stop at Malaysia’s Port Klang on Friday.
CMA CGM has several other vessels going through the Suez Canal. The Zhenge He entered the waterway from the Mediterranean last week, while the Jules Verne is making its own round-trip voyage this week.
The Jules Verne is the first ship on the Ocean Alliance’s MED2/MEX (Mediterranean Club Express) service to return to the Suez route since January 2024. The ship is scheduled to transit the Suez Canal westbound on Friday, and will make a return eastbound trip on Dec. 13.
According to container shipping research firm Linerlytica, if the vessel continues its voyage as expected, the Ocean Alliance could reopen a second Far East-to-Mediterranean service via the Suez Canal.
“Since the onset of the Red Sea crisis, the Alliance’s MED5 has been the only major east-west service regularly using the Suez route,” Linerlytica said in a note Sunday.
MSC has held the same position since January that the security situation remains unclear and that it will sail around the Cape of Good Hope until further notice.
As for Maersk, CEO Vincent Clerc appeared to be slightly more upbeat about a potential Red Sea return than usual in the carrier’s recent earnings call.
While he pointed out that it needs to be clear that the ceasefire is “entrenched and doesn’t risk going backward” before a return is made, he said that if it holds, “I think we’ve crossed a gate and made a big step towards returning through the Red Sea.”
