“The fate of the Galaxy Leader ship and its crew is in the hands of the Palestinian negotiator,” Houthi spokesman Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said in a statement on X.

“Its crew was released today in coordination with Hamas and with Omani mediation.”

The crew consisted of nationals of Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico, including 17 from the Philippines. President Bongbong Marcos of the Philippines announced in a statement that the Filipino crew members were under the care of the Philippines Embassy in Muscat, Oman, and would “very soon” be reunited with their families at home.

The release of the crew suggests that the Houthi rebels may be seeking to reduce tensions in the region following the Hamas-Israel cease-fire, which began last week.

The Galaxy Leader vessel and its crew were seized by the Yemen rebels in November 2023 as the Houthis began to enforce a military blockade of the important trade route of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The Houthis stated the blockade was in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel had launched a full-scale war against Hamas, another Iran-proxy militia, a month earlier.

During the blockade, the Houthis conducted some 160 attacks targeting commercial and U.S. naval ships during the blockade, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

The administration of then-U.S. President Joe Biden, focused on preventing the Israel-Hamas war from escalating across the Middle East, responded to the blockade by launching the multinational Operation Prosperity Guardian security initiative. The U.S. military also conducted numerous strikes into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen to degrade its military capabilities. It also imposed rounds of sanctions against the group and designated it a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in January of last year.

The release of the came shortly before newly inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump moved to re-designate the Houthi rebels as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a step that could further escalate tensions in the region.

Yemeni Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism Moammar al-Eryani issued a statement to emphasize that the Houthis release of the sailors was not a gesture of of goodwill but “a blatant attempt to manipulate the facts and cover-up the truth of what happened — a fully fledged piracy crime on a commercial ship in international waters.”

“The late release of the crew of the Galaxy Leader … does not eliminate the harm they have suffered or alleviate the suffering they have endured, but rather should reflect the international community’s concern about the militia’s illegal actions and human rights violations,” he said.

The internationally recognized Yemeni government does not want international pressure, which has been piling on the Houthis amid their blockade, to diminish now that a cease-fire has been achieved and welcomed Trump’s decision to impose harsher sanctions on the militia with the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation.

“We are that the continued control of the Houthis militia over parts of the Yemeni coastal strip and the three port of Hodeidah, and its use as a launching pad for piracy operations and threats to commercial ships and oil tankers pose a serious threat to maritime security and negatively affects global trade, which calls for urgent action by the international community,” he said, as he called on the European Union and Britain to follow in the United States’ steps and designate the Houthis.

The Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have been locked in a civil war for a decade, creating what the United Nations has said is “one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time” with more than 4.3 million people internally displaced and 21.6 million in dire need of aid.