strikeJun 16, 2026

Blockading the Strait of Hormuz creates a problem. Syria offers a solution.

Summary

Blockading the Strait of Hormuz creates a problem. Syria offers a solution. | Baniyas, Tartus, and Damascus, Syria The lines seem endless. Like giant ants, oil-hauling trucks with Iraqi license plates and white, cylindrical fuel tanks bearing a red stripe down the middle rumble along in single file, one after the other. With the U.S.-Iran war having severely restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, nearly 900 miles away, this four-lane road winding by olive groves and apple orchards in Syria’s western countryside has been Iraq’s only route to export oil to the world. Why We Wrote This During the Iran war, Tehran's most potent leverage vis-à-vis the U.S. and global economies proved to be its ability to clamp down on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The search for overland routes for oil and other goods has led directly to Syria, an old crossroads revived. Some 1,400 such trucks have entered the country from Iraq each day, forming convoys that cross the desert westward to unload fuel on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. Their destination is Baniyas, a small, shallow, 4-meter-deep port with a handful of cargo vessels and dozens of aging, chipped-paint wooden fishing boats flying Syria’s new flag docked at its quay. On a recent Thursday morning, one nautical mile offshore, a half-dozen tankers from across the world are anchored, waiting for the Iraqi oil. Crews are busy at the port; cranes are dredging the harbor so Baniyas can accept larger vessels. Largely inactive for more than a decade and last repaired in 2006, this Syrian port is now handling 90,000 barrels of Iraqi oil per day. “Syria is starting to take advantage of its geographic position due to the war and becoming an important trading center in the world,” says Ali Adra, director of public relations for Syria’s port authorities. “Our ports are seeing demand growing by the day from the Gulf and across the world for containers, bulk goods, energy.” Despite the finalization of a ceasefire agreement early Monday between the United States and Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Iran continues to claim it will impose tolls on the shared waterway, and Gulf states are doubling down on alternatives. With its rail, roads, ports, and land link between continents, Syria is at the center of new trade and energy corridors being developed by Gulf Arab states, Jordan, and Turkey to circumvent the Persian Gulf. These long-unused Syrian transit corridors cannot entirely replace the Strait of Hormuz, experts and officials say, but they can dramatically reduce the world’s reliance on the hotly contested shipping lane. They are already reshaping regional trade and cementing new Mideast alliances. With a slew of recently announced rail projects, Europe and the local powers are working to reduce how long Iran has leverage in the Strait of Hormuz. Ironically, Tehran’s closure of the waterway has thrown an economic lifeline and strategic advantage to an enemy, interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who ousted the Iran-allied Assad regime in December 2024. This is why Syria will be selling itself this week at the Group of Seven meeting in Evian, France, as a safe Hormuz alternative through which Europe and the Gulf can trade and lay fiber optic cables beyond the reach of Iran or its proxies. Even with logistical challenges and a high price tag, regional states and economists agree that a post-Hormuz future runs through Syria. Historical bridge reawakened Syria’s strategic geographic position connecting continents, including nearly 130 miles of Mediterranean coastline, was never fully utilized during five decades of dictatorship and war. Before the 2011 uprising and civil war, 114,000 trucks crossed Syria each year between Europe and the Gulf, while a regular maritime route between Tartus and Venice, Italy, brought fresh Syrian produce to Europe. “Syria’s geographic position as a land bridge that connects Europe and the Arab Gulf through roads and rail predates the Hormuz crisis,” Syrian Transport Minister Yarub Badr says in his Damascus office, noting that the crisis has dramatically enhanced its importance. “This land transport hub cannot be a complete replacement for maritime shipping between Europe and the Arab Gulf,” he says. “But in challenging times, it represents an alternative corridor.” Even with much of Syria’s road and rail infrastructure still damaged by war and needing renovation, the Gulf states, Turkey, and Iraq are now diverting much of their trade through the country. Since the Strait of Hormuz closure in March, Gulf states have been importing thousands of tons of timber, cement, soy, corn, consumer goods, and livestock through Syrian ports each month. The Latakia and Tartus ports report a 25% increase in goods being exported and imported since early March. Tartus alone has increased its capacity for handling goods tenfold, from 100,000 tons per month since the fall of the Assad regime to 1 million tons per month as of April. In July 2025, the United Arab Emirates rented out 80% of the Tartus port, with DP World, an Emirati logistics company, renovating and managing the port as part of a 30-year, $800 million deal. Less than a year later, that investment is paying off. Tartus today is humming as a lifeline for the UAE, which was previously reliant on the Strait of Hormuz for 80% of its seabound food and consumer goods imports. There are even talks of reviving the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline, a 621-mile line built in the 1950s to export Iraqi oil through the Mediterranean that had been destroyed seemingly beyond repair during the Syrian war. “When it comes to oil, gas, and merchandise, there is very little that countries in the region can do to circumvent Syria” as a Hormuz alternative, says Karam Shaar, a Syrian economist and director of the Karam Shaar Advisory, a consulting company based in New Zealand. “I think the longer the Hormuz Strait is blockaded, the more serious the steps will be taken to connect Syria with the rest of the world.” New connections The corridors have solidified cooperation among Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Syria, cementing a new Mideast bloc that aligns with neither Iran nor Israel. One surprise has been the detente between Syria and Iraq; ties between the two, tense for years, completely deteriorated after Mr. Sharaa took power in Damascus in December 2024 by ousting then-leader Bashar al-Assad. Like many factions in Iraq, the Assads were backed by Iran. Mr. Sharaa had led a Sunni Islamist rebel group; most of Iraq’s political elite are Shiites and view him with suspicion. Yet Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, after less than a month in office, sent a rare message to President Sharaa on June 10, expressing his desire to “strengthen security and economic cooperation.” The lines of Iraqi oil trucks, accompanied by the large-scale entry of Iraqi nationals, were the first economic trade with Syria for nearly a decade. “We were terrified at first, Syria was a country at war and full of ISIS,” says Hamzeh Yusuf, a young Iraqi tanker driver from Baghdad, referring to Islamic State militants who waged a potent insurgency in both Syria and Iraq. Standing on the side of the road in a queue on the rural outskirts of Tartus, Mr. Yusuf waits to empty his cargo at a refinery as a colleague wipes off a spot of grease on the back of the truck with a rag. He waves to the olive groves and apple orchards behind him and the sea beyond. “But it is different than what we expected. It’s beautiful! The greenery, the sea, the people. I want to come back and bring my family here for tourism.” Projects: The New Hejaz In April, Turkey, Jordan, and Syria formed a trilateral government committee to build new rail corridors, with Saudi Arabia set to join this month. They plan a network following a path similar to the old Hejaz railway, built by the Ottomans in 1908 from Damascus to Medina, in what is now Saudi Arabia, to ferry Muslim pilgrims and passengers for the Hajj. As envisioned, this new line will be a modern, high-speed freight track for diesel-electric locomotives traveling at 200 to 250 kilometers per hour (124 to 155 mph). To be built within four to five years, it would run from Ankara, Turkey, to Aleppo, Syria; through industrial zones in the center of Syria to Damascus; then to Amman, Jordan; and then southeast through the desert to the Jordan-Saudi border. The track would be designed specifically to link up to the Saudi Arabian Railway, which, as of 2030, is to be connected to the under-construction Gulf Cooperation Council railway linking all six Gulf Arab states’ capitals, industrial zones, sea ports, and logistical hubs. Plans for the new Hejaz coalesced two months after Saudi Arabia announced it was building a line connecting its eastern province – the center of its oil and petrochemicals production, repeatedly targeted by Iranian missiles and drones – to Haditha on the Jordan-Syrian border. If the plans proceed, Syria by 2031 would be at the center of a comprehensive system connecting Europe, Turkey, the Levant, and the Gulf; and the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf. Depending on the product being transported or route taken, multiple experts say these connections will reduce four- to five-week maritime journeys to five days or, in some cases, 24 hours. Gulf Arab officials say they intend to push forward on these new corridors through Syria, even should the Strait of Hormuz reopen today. “We will not have our economy and sovereignty held hostage by blackmail from Iran or any other country,” says one senior Gulf official, who was not authorized to speak to the press. “The future of our economy and stability hinges on having diverse supply chains to weather instability. Rail and road through Syria is critical to this.” According to Reuters news agency, the Hormuz closure deprived the global economy of some $50 billion worth of oil in the first 50 days of war. The Gulf economies alone, meanwhile, are estimated to have lost nearly $2 billion in overall exports per day. “The Syrian corridor effectively functions as a geopolitical insurance policy – an asset worth investing in even if it is not utilized daily,” notes Yasser al-Mishal, vice dean of the Faculty of Economics at Damascus University. Obstructions on the line Connecting Syria with its neighbors is no easy task. Due to a decade-plus of drug smuggling from Syria – Captagon, a highly addictive synthetic amphetamine, was a key revenue source for the Assad regime – Jordan bans the import of many Syrian goods. Syrian trucks and drivers are consequently not allowed to enter Turkey as well. Instead, they must offload their cargo for Jordanian or Turkish trucks to continue the journey, adding costs and delays. Competing customs regimes are a red-tape nightmare. But the steepest hurdle to this new Middle East corridor is the cost. Syria requires $1 billion to repair existing track and lay new. Only 650 of Syria’s 1,770 miles of track are in service. It will cost Syria $250 million alone for the 71-mile stretch of high-speed track from Damascus to the Jordanian border – the key link to the Europe-Turkey-Levant-Gulf corridor. The World Bank is in talks to provide a $60 million to $200 million grant to help Syria overhaul its rail line, the Transport Ministry says, but Damascus still must make up the difference. The country already faces up to an estimated $800 billion bill for reconstruction, according to World Bank and U.N. estimates; in 2025, the transitional government spent its entire $3.49 billion in revenue on public sector salaries, education, and health. “$250 million is a large number today for Syria because there are other priorities,” notes Mr. Badr, the transport minister. “There are people living in tents, [and] there is a large number of returnees to Syria who require improved living situations.” “It is not acceptable to spend money on [other] things before we house the people ... with dignity, water, electricity, sanitation services, and schools,” he says. With funding notoriously hard to procure for freight rail projects, the parties should act fast while interest is high, experts say. “It is a ‘now-or-never’ inflection point rather than an open-ended opportunity,” warns Dr. Mishal. Buzz with every boat There is barely a moment’s rest at the bustling Tartus Port. On a recently docked cargo ship, Chinese sailors and a crane operator carefully lower large industrial parts and steel for a project in central Syria. Each foreign vessel that docks here still brings some excitement to port staff; after years of isolation, another sign that Syria is reconnecting to the world. “Syria’s ports and roads are a bridge between continents and countries that is being rediscovered and used as an alternate route, a trend that will continue even after the current crisis,” says Mr. Adra, of the port authority. Uniformed port workers diligently paint bollards a fresh coat of black, ready for more vessels to come. As a global logistics hub, they hope Syria’s ship, or ships, are just coming in. Walaa Buaidani in Damascus and Baniyas supported reporting for this article.

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The Christian Science MonitorBy The Christian Science Monitor
Blockading the Strait of Hormuz creates a problem. Syria offers a solution. | Baniyas, Tartus, and Damascus, Syria The lines seem endless. Like giant ants, oil-hauling trucks with Iraqi license plates and white, cylindrical fuel tanks bearing a red stripe down the middle rumble a…

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Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIsraelIranProxy

US strikes Iran for 10th consecutive night as Tehran strikes tanker in the Strait of Hormuz

○ 1 source

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, forcing its crew to abandon the ship, while the United States conducted yet another round of airstrikes targeting the Islamic Republic as they struggle over control of the key waterway.

The 10 consecutive nights of U.S. airstrikes haven’t compelled Tehran to loosen its grip on the strait, through which about a fifth of all crude oil and natural gas traded once passed in peacetime. Even as the U.S. and Iran inch closer to all-out war again, Iran’s interior minister traveled to Pakistan, a key mediator in the conflict, for talks.

However, it remains unclear just what new deal could be reached to end the fighting. The interim deal signed last month that was meant to end the fighting has crumbled. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has largely stalled. And as fighting intensifies, both sides have targeted civilian infrastructure relied on by millions of people.

“Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other U.S. interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world,” the U.S. State Department said in a new warning to Americans. The escalation has pushed oil prices higher in recent weeks.

Benchmark Brent crude traded Tuesday above $88 a barrel and regular gasoline in the U.S. climbed to an average of $4 a gallon, keeping pressure on Americans’ wallets ahead of midterm elections this fall. Meanwhile, the U.S. military identified two soldiers who were killed in Jordan in attacks that left a third person missing.

Separately, the military confirmed another death in Iraq on Saturday during the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone. President Donald Trump took to social media on Monday to warn that “Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!

” Trump was planning to attend a ceremony on Tuesday evening at Dover Air Force Base, where at least one service member’s remains were due to arrive. US strikes come as ships attacked The U.S. military’s Central Command said Tuesday it targeted “Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and air defense systems.

” It released more footage of bombings that targeted sites in Iran. “American forces remain postured and prepared to hold Iran accountable for unwarranted aggression toward civilian mariners seeking to freely and openly transit the strait,” the command said.

Iranian state media reported that explosions were heard in Fars, Hormozgan, Ilam, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces. However, traffic through the strait has slowed to a crawl during the latest violence. Lloyd's List Intelligence said only three ships transited the strait on Sunday.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said a tanker came under attack early Tuesday in the strait off Oman, forcing the crew to abandon the vessel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed the attack, as well as two other attacks on ships Monday in the waterway.

The route around Oman has been the one the U.S. military has encouraged ships to travel to avoid Iran’s control. The UKMTO separately reported Tuesday that another previously unknown attack on a ship took place early the previous day. Tehran also hit U.

S.-allied countries throughout the Middle East. Jordan military's said Tuesday that Iran targeted it with five drones and three missiles, all of which were shot down. Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens Tuesday afternoon as another Iranian barrage targeted the island kingdom, which is home to the U.

S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Nearly 100 US injuries since early July The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson said nearly 100 U.S. service members have been injured since the U.S. restarted strikes on July 7, and 96% of them have returned to duty.

“The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions,” Sean Parnell posted Monday on X in response to a New York Times report that the Pentagon has withheld information about troop injuries from Iranian strikes. He denied that the Pentagon was hiding data about injuries.

However, the Defense Casualty Analysis System, the military’s clearinghouse for reporting deaths and injuries in conflict, has not been updated as of Monday night with the latest attacks. Yemen rebels threaten attacks on other Mideast waterway Yemen’s Houthi rebels announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia on Monday.

The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, said they would block shipping between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by targeting the Bab el-Mandeb, a maritime chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz, in response to an attack on Sanaa International Airport last week that they blamed on Saudi Arabia.

With the Strait of Hormuz blocked, Saudi Arabia has been relying on a pipeline to the Red Sea to get millions of barrels of oil out to market. The Houthis earlier demonstrated their ability to disrupt shipping there when they targeted ships for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with over 100 vessels attacked.

Saudi Arabia’s military said it would keep the waterway open. “All Houthi threats against transiting vessels will be dealt with swiftly and firmly, as such threats are a blatant violation of international law and fall under acts of maritime piracy,” said Maj.

Gen, Turki al-Malki, a Saudi military spokesman. A glimmer of hope for diplomacy Pakistan has intensified diplomatic efforts in recent days to resuscitate the interim deal. Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni arrived in Islamabad on Monday for two days of talks with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and others.

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the U.S. is still open to negotiating with Iran but that “it has to be real.” “If the door opens to diplomacy — if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system, or take control of the negotiations — that’ll be a very positive development,” Rubio said.

“That’s not where we are tonight, unfortunately.” Iranian authorities on Sunday said at least 50 people have been killed and 517 wounded in the latest rounds of U.S. strikes. Since the war began on Feb. 28, 17 U.S. service members have been killed.

JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIranRussiaChina

How the US-Iran conflict has thrown India’s Chabahar plans into doubt

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US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted social media images showing damage to a maritime control tower at Iran’s Chabahar port following reported US military strikes, accompanied by the caption “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz.” India’s Ministry of External Affairs stated that the Shahid Beheshti terminal operated by India at the port sustained no damage.

The ministry reiterated its position that civilian infrastructure should not be targeted during conflicts.

Location: Iran

Divya A

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedUSIranProxy

U.S. strikes Iran and Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia shipping as mediators push 10-day ceasefire

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U.S. strikes Iran and Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia shipping as mediators push 10-day ceasefire - The U.S. has carried out its tenth consecutive evening of attacks against Iran. - Iran attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, while Houthi militants in Yemen declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia.

- Rystad Energy has warned about the risk of a significant rebound in oil prices. The U.S. completed a fresh round of strikes against Iran on Monday evening as Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis threatened to impose a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, potentially opening a new front in the Middle East conflict.

The latest cycle of tit-for-tat strikes comes amid reports that regional mediators have presented Washington and Tehran with a proposal for a 10-day ceasefire, a pitch that could put last month's Memorandum of Understanding back on track. The U.S. Central Command said overnight that it had carried out another round of strikes on Iran at 9 p.

m. ET on Monday. "U.S. forces struck Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems to degrade Iran's ability to continue attacking commercial vessels flowing through the Strait of Hormuz," Centcom said in a statement.

It added that commercial vessel transits through the strategically vital waterway were continuing. Centcom forces, the statement said, had facilitated the transit of around 900 commercial vessels and 450 million barrels of crude oil through the strait since early May.

Iran, meanwhile, attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, forcing its crew to abandon the vessel as it seeks to tighten its control over the waterway, one that typically handles around 20% of the world's oil traffic. Houthi militants in Yemen on Monday declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia effective immediately, a move that could substantially threaten Middle East oil supplies.

The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait during the U.S.-Iran war. The strait is a choke point for commercial ship traffic that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and global markets. The militants, in a statement carried by state news, accused the Saudis of laying an "aggressive siege" against them.

Tensions escalated last week after they claimed that Riyadh had bombed Sanaa International Airport. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said that it would respond to the Houthis naval blockade with force, reportedly describing such threats as "a blatant violation of international law.

" 10-day ceasefire 'won't be an easy task' Oil prices rose briefly on news of the Houthi statement but later pared gains as energy market participants closely monitored the prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough. International benchmark Brent crude futures with September delivery were last seen trading 0.

5% lower at $88.77 per barrel, having surpassed $90 in the previous session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures with August delivery, meanwhile, stood 0.4% lower at $82.88. Strategists at ING said there's some hope of de-escalation between the U.S.

and Iran given the reports that mediators are proposing a 10-day ceasefire. "This won't be an easy task," ING's Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said in a research note published Tuesday. "Large divisions remain between the US and Iran. And President Trump said the US would retaliate following the deaths of several American troops," they added.

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, President Donald Trump said: "Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!" He added that this directive had been passed on to every leader in the military. Saudi Arabia oil risk Jorge León, senior vice president and head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, said the Houthis' threat puts approximately 2.

5 million barrels per day of Saudi Arabian oil at risk at a time when traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is at a standstill. "With the Gulf's primary maritime outlet largely closed, the market is increasingly dependent on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline and Red Sea terminals to maintain export flows," León said Monday in a research note.

Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline network, or Petroline, is a roughly 750-mile system that transports crude across Saudi Arabia, connecting Abqaiq on the oil-rich kingdom's eastern Gulf coast to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. "Any disruption at Bab el-Mandeb would therefore threaten not only Saudi shipments but one of the few remaining routes capable of compensating for the severe reduction in Hormuz traffic," León said.

"If a ceasefire does not materialize and Hormuz remains largely closed while the Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping intensifies, the risk of a significant rebound in oil prices would be substantial," he added. — CNBC's Chloe Taylor and Spencer Kimball both contributed to this report.

Sam Meredith

Jul 21, 2026strikeUnverifiedIsraelIranProxy

How Houthi Red Sea blockade tightens Iran's grip on energy supplies

○ 1 source

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis announced Monday they would impose a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, further throttling a global energy market already greatly restricted by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This is why it matters and what it means for the Iran war and the global energy crisis.

It is not clear how the Houthis would carry out a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, its northern neighbor along the Red Sea coast, or whether it would include a return to attacks on shipping. Yemen sits on the Bab el-Mandeb strait – the southern gateway to the Red Sea – and closing that would open up a new front in the energy crisis and Iran's overarching conflict with the U.

S. With the Strait of Hormuz already disrupted, the Red Sea has become a critical alternative outlet for Gulf oil and other products. A serious disruption would mean both of the Middle East's major oil export routes are shut simultaneously. Iran's partial blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after Israel and the U.

S. attacked it on Feb. 28 disrupted most oil and other exports from the Gulf, raising prices and delivering a global energy shock. Saudi Arabia responded by diverting more than 70% of its normal daily crude exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Ships from Yanbu bound for Europe go north through the Suez Canal.

Those heading to Asia go south through Bab el-Mandeb. Shipments from Yanbu averaged 4 million barrels per day in recent weeks according to data from Kpler and Signal Ocean, up from around 973,000 bpd a year earlier. Total petroleum volumes transiting Bab el-Mandeb amounted to 7.

4 million bpd in June, or about 7% of global oil output, according to Kpler data, up from 4.2 million bpd last year. That has provided a lifeline for the energy market, helping to keep down global oil prices. Saudi Arabia is considering an expansion of its crude oil pipeline to the Red Sea coast, Reuters reported last week.

When the Houthis launched attacks on Red Sea shipping in November 2023, Gulf oil exports were flowing freely. The Houthis have been in a civil war against the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government for more than a decade and have attacked Gulf neighbors with missiles and drones.

However, a 2022 truce between the country's warring sides largely held until last week, when Yemen's internationally recognized government said it had struck Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian plane landing. The Houthis said Saudi Arabia was responsible and, in response, fired missiles at Abha airport in the kingdom's mountainous southwest.

A senior Houthi official, politburo member Mohammad al-Farah, then warned in an interview on Iran's Press TV website that if the situation kept escalating, Bab el-Mandeb would be closed. The U.S. says Iran has armed, funded and trained the Houthis with help from Hezbollah.

The Houthis deny being an Iranian proxy and say they develop their own weapons. It is not clear how far the group's stance on Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea stems from its own strategic priorities or is being made on Iran's behalf. After Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza, the Houthis began firing at Israel and on shipping in the Red Sea, saying they were doing so in support of Palestinians.

The attacks severely disrupted global shipping, prompting Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and other major companies to divert around Africa – a far longer, more expensive route. Red Sea traffic has not recovered since, with traffic through the Suez Canal down 52% in 2025 versus 2023 levels and at its lowest in at least 50 years, Suez Canal Authority data shows.

A U.S.-led mission to restore free navigation in the Red Sea involved repeated strikes on Houthi targets and a campaign that shot down hundreds of drones and missiles. But some Houthi attacks continued until last summer, only ending completely with the Gaza cease-fire in October.

Last month, the Houthis said they would ban ships linked to Israel from the Red Sea after Israel renewed military attacks on Iran. However, that threat was never acted on and shipping groups Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are resuming some Red Sea routes that they had abandoned during the Houthi attacks last year, Maersk said this month.

While Hezbollah and the Iraqi groups joined the war early with rocket and drone fire after the first U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the Houthis had been comparatively quiet. The group's leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on March 5: "Our fingers are on the trigger at any moment should developments warrant it.

" Iranian commanders have repeatedly warned that the Houthis could join the war. The Houthis launched a few missile and drone attacks on Israel in late March and early April. Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander Esmaeil Qaani said on June 1 they could choke off the Red Sea.

That may now have changed with their announcement of the blockade on Monday against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for what they called the kingdom's siege of its ports and airports, including last week's strike.

Reuters