The Biden administration — along with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy — finally persuaded Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas which took effect on 19 January, a day before Trump’s inauguration
After the truce in Gaza, the Houthis stopped their attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea as they had promised for more than a year — Wow!terroristintegrity
But as the ceasefire’s first phase expired on 2 March, Netanyahu refused to start the second phase of negotiations which required, 1. a complete Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza 2. and talks over a permanent truce
Instead, with the Trump administration’s support, the Israeli government imposed a new siege on Gaza, banning all food and other aid deliveries Netanyahu backed out of the deal he had initially agreed to and tried to pressure Hamas into accepting a six-week extension of the ceasefire’s first phase
By 18 March, Israel resumed its brutal war on Gaza with airstrikes that killed more than 400 Palestinians in a single day [according to the Hamas-controlled local authorities]
In the days leading up to the ceasefire’s collapse, Houthi leaders warned that they would restart their attacks on shipping vessels if Israel resumed its war And that’s when the Trump administration began threatening renewed US military strikes against Yemen
