Attacks come as war shows no signs of ending despite assertions from US President of a deal being imminent
An Iranian drone and an Iranian missile system are displayed in Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran, July 30, 2026. PHOTO: REUTERS
The US and Yemen’s Houthis reported separate attacks on shipping on Tuesday as prospects for ending the Iran war appeared to dim, with Tehran saying the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed unless Washington accepts its conditions.
The attacks, in the Gulf of Oman leading to the strait and at the entrance to the Red Sea — both vital chokepoints for global oil supplies — come as the war shows no signs of ending despite repeated assertions from US President Donald Trump of a deal being imminent.
Oil prices gained and global shares retreated amid renewed pessimism about a quick end to the conflict. Brent crude futures climbed 1.4% to settle at $88.91 per barrel, and US crude rose 1.3% to $83.20.
At the southern end of the Red Sea, four crew members were killed in a suspected Houthi attack on a small cargo vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday, Yemen’s Transport Ministry said. Two Yemeni rescuers from an anti-Houthi military group were also killed, Yemen’s Coast Guard said.
The fatalities aboard the Egyptian-owned Tihamah would be the first deaths on shipping by the Houthis since the Iran war began.
Read: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi heads to Tehran for talks amid Iran-US mediation efforts
The Houthi-affiliated news agency Saba reported that the group, which said last month it would impose a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. It did not name the ship, and there was no immediate Saudi response to the report.
The US military, meanwhile, said a US Navy MH-60 helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles to disable the steering gear of a Panama-flagged cargo ship.
The ship ignored repeated warnings to stop violating a naval blockade on Iranian ports, the US Central Command said. Maritime sources told Reuters the ship was hit off Pakistan while sailing into the Gulf of Oman.
Stepped up rhetoric
Both Iran and the United States have stepped up rhetoric in the past two days.
Iran’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, said on Tuesday that the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route will remain closed unless the US accepts Iran’s conditions to end the war – the release of Iran’s frozen assets and an end to conflicts throughout the region, including in Lebanon and Gaza.
That followed a new demand from Trump on Monday that Iran should pay compensation for people killed in 50 years of wars, attacks and protests.
Throughout the conflict, Trump has alternated between threats of escalation and claims that a peace deal is imminent.
In an interview released late on Monday, he suggested the uncertainty could last for a while, saying he might just “bop along” and let Tehran fail economically, or hit them “really, really hard.”
“I’m sort of negotiating,” Trump told Real America’s Voice. “They’re very devious negotiators.”
Read more: 3 Pakistanis among 6 killed in Houthi attack on commercial vessel in Bab al-Mandeb
Speaking to reporters after a visit to Ohio on Tuesday, Trump said “Iran is going fine, going just absolutely fine.”
“We totally control the Strait of Hormuz … Nobody else, only us,” he said.
“At some point, maybe they’ll do something and then they get blown away,” he said of Iran. “But right now, we’re in a very good position. We have a country that has been the bully of the Middle East for 50 years, really 51 if you think about it … and they’re no longer the bully of the Middle East.”
Asked about an incident in which he switched planes in Turkey last month because of worries over reports of a potential Iranian assassination threat, Trump suggested the alternative aircraft may have faced greater risk.
“That would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for,” he told reporters after The Washington Post broke the story about him secretly taking a military flight instead of Air Force One in an operation involving him being moved between aircraft in a catering truck.
“Any consequential president has a lot of threats,” Trump added. “I don’t worry about anything.”
The comments from Rezaei, appointed on Sunday as second-in-command of the body that coordinates Iran’s security and foreign policy, were the strongest indication the Strait of Hormuz would not reopen to shipping anytime soon. The waterway handled a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flow before the war.
“As long as America does not change its behaviour and does not accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened,” Rezaei said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
There was no immediate comment from Washington on Iran’s latest comments.
Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28.
Iran has struck US assets and infrastructure in countries including Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Raising the prospect of further escalation, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, an adviser to the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said on Iranian state TV on Tuesday that the corps was developing the ability to carry out operations “on enemy soil.”
“We need to be able to move the operations to the enemy’s soil, whenever this is needed and ordered,” he said. “This is the characteristic of the offensive doctrine that has to be attained.”
Yemen’s Houthis say dozens killed, wounded in strikes on Marib and Mokha
Yemen’s Houthi group claimed on Tuesday that missile and drone strikes targeting military sites in Marib in central Yemen and the coastal city of Mokha left dozens of people killed or injured.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group launched a large number of ballistic missiles and drones at military deployments, weapons depots and command centres in Mokha and the Tadawin military camp in Marib governorate.
In a statement carried by the Houthi-run Saba news agency, Saree said the targeted forces were linked to Saudi Arabia.
He also claimed the strikes hit their targets and left “dozens killed and injured,” including Saudis.
There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia, which maintains that it has no forces inside Yemen and says its role is limited to supporting forces aligned with the internationally recognised government and securing its borders.
Iran parliament prepares Hormuz bill to restrict ‘hostile’ vessels in Gulf
Iran’s parliament is preparing a bill on the Strait of Hormuz that would bar military and commercial vessels from countries Tehran considers “hostile” from entering the Gulf without Iranian authorisation, a senior lawmaker said.
Ibrahim Azizi, chairman of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said the proposed legislation would be among Iran’s most important and advanced laws since the nationalisation of its oil industry, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Under the bill, military and commercial vessels belonging to “hostile” countries would not be allowed to enter the Gulf without Iran’s approval, Azizi said.
The legislation aims to strengthen Iran’s authority and control over the Strait of Hormuz, he added.
On August 9, committee spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said the committee approved a bill aimed at securing the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf and promoting sustainable development in both areas.
The region has remained tense since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February. Tehran and Washington have yet to reach a final agreement to end the confrontation, while the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to disrupt global energy supply chains.
