Iran Targets 10 Ships in Strait of Hormuz in Massive Attack on Global Shipping

On Sep 9, 2026

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a massive Iranian attack on global shipping, Israel punishing the United Kingdom over its trade restrictions, and Europe’s fractured space strategy.

Hormuz Under Fire

Tehran claimed on Wednesday to have carried out its largest known wave of attacks on shipping since the start of the Iran war. Such assaults put the Strait of Hormuz under growing pressure, skyrocketing global crude prices and suggesting that recent efforts to gradually reopen the strategic waterway are at an impasse.

Hormuz Under Fire

On Tuesday, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) claimed to have destroyed five Iranian oil carriers in the Gulf of Oman and near Iran’s Kharg Island, the latter of which hosts Tehran’s main oil export terminal. “Iran has used the tankers as part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and its regional proxies,” Centcom said in a statement.

The United States said that Tuesday’s strikes were retaliation for two failed IRGC ballistic missile attacks on a U.S. Navy warship. “Iran continues to try to hit U.S. naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday.

In response, Iran said that it had attacked 10 ships—two U.S. ships and eight oil vessels—near the Strait of Hormuz as well as fired ballistic missiles at a military base used by U.S. forces in Jordan. At least one individual on the Gibraltar-flagged Hercules Star was killed, and several other ships reported fires onboard.

U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that Iran has launched ballistic missiles at U.S. Navy destroyers, an aircraft carrier, and at least one Marine ship since Friday—marking a dramatic escalation in attacks on maritime vessels. Yet Centcom claimed on Wednesday that all of Iran’s recent attacks failed to hit U.S. military vessels. Jordan has similarly stressed that nearly all missiles fired at its military base this week were intercepted.

However, such statements have done little to ease global market concerns. The price of Brent crude briefly hit $100 per barrel on Wednesday for the first time since July, and the price of West Texas Intermediate crude is up 41 percent since the start of the Iran war. Diesel costs have also soared and are now nearing $6 per gallon—more than 55 percent higher than on the eve of the conflict.

U.S. President Donald Trump argued on Monday that the oil market will get better. “Oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropping (but more!), when we WIN the war with Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, claiming that a gallon of gas will ultimately drop below $2. Yet crude prices continue to reach record highs even as the White House maintains that the Iranian navy and air force have already been destroyed and that the U.S. military has control of the Strait of Hormuz.

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What We’re Following

30 days to leave. Israel on Wednesday gave the United Kingdom 30 days to close its consulate in East Jerusalem in retaliation for London announcing its intention to impose sweeping trade restrictions on Israel, including a ban on all Israeli goods produced in the occupied West Bank. Israel also barred 12 British politicians from entering the country, told British officials in the West Bank and at a Gaza coordination center to leave, and prohibited the United Kingdom from continuing to train the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the West Bank.

“The British move is morally distorted and constitutes blatant interference in the affairs of a sovereign state and its electoral process,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said, referring to upcoming Israeli elections that could challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hold on power. Notably, Israel did not announce similar punishments on Canada or France, which vowed to join the United Kingdom’s trade ban, nor on the nine other countries that endorsed Britain’s decision.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband unveiled the measures the day before, citing Israel’s “unlawful” settlements and the alleged “ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” by extremist Israeli settlers. Although Miliband expressed disappointment with Israel’s decision to retaliate, he did not back down from his claims. “We weighed the costs and the benefits of acting,” Miliband told the BBC. “We thought that we couldn’t just simply stand by because we feared Israeli reaction.”

Europe’s space ambitions. France and Germany kicked off the two-day International Space Summit in Paris on Wednesday with a bid for more European involvement in the competitive industry. But experts fear that the forum may have been doomed before it even began, as lower-than-expected turnout on Wednesday highlighted the lack of a unified space strategy among the continent’s biggest players.

Organizers advertised the summit as an opportunity to advance global space cooperation and improve industry regulations, especially as the sector becomes increasingly privatized. However, the forum’s co-chairs, France and Germany, remain at odds over how best to address this. Whereas Paris has pushed for greater European autonomy from the United States, which has overwhelmingly dominated the private sphere, Berlin has shied away from abandoning the U.S.-based company SpaceX. The two have also disagreed on the best strategy for countering Starlink, with France supporting the European Union’s IRIS² secure satellite constellation and Germany investing in its own network.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz skipped the summit, citing other commitments. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also chose not to attend. Meanwhile, representatives from U.S. space companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, withdrew from the event reportedly due to pressure from Washington, which opposes the summit’s pro-Europe agenda.

A collapsing truce? Houthi rebels in Yemen accused Saudi-backed forces on Wednesday of conducting 54 overnight airstrikes across six Yemeni provinces. “These airstrikes and the ongoing aggression against our country will not go unanswered or unpunished, by the will and power of God,” said Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesperson. “And as the saying goes, the wheel turns against the aggressor.” No casualties or damages were immediately reported. However, rescuers on Wednesday continued to recover bodies from a strike earlier this week on a Houthi-run prison that killed at least 23 people.

Wednesday’s overnight assault came less than 24 hours after the Iranian-backed proxy group launched a slew of missiles and drone strikes across Saudi Arabia, injuring more than 70 people and damaging critical civilian and military infrastructure. On Wednesday, the Saudi Civil Defense lifted its alert on the southern city of Khamis Mushait, where Houthi strikes hit the nearby King Khalid Air Base.

Renewed violence between Houthi and Saudi-led forces in recent weeks has reignited fears that the two sides’ tenuous truce, established in 2022, could collapse into all-out war. “We call on the Houthis to cease their aggressive actions immediately,” Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday, warning that these attacks “disregard the safety of civilians,” escalate regional tensions, and “undermine diplomatic efforts aimed at bringing the conflict in Yemen to an end through a lasting political solution.”

Odds and Ends

Last Thursday marked the 125th anniversary of Australia unveiling its national flag. To commemorate the special day, Canberra planned to display 44 Australian flags outside of Parliament. However, in an embarrassing blunder, two of the flags raised were instead from New Zealand, prompting officials to quickly switch out the misidentified banners. To their credit, the Australian and New Zealand flags look quite similar, with the only big differences being the addition of a seven-point Commonwealth star on the Australian version and the stars being red instead of white. Still, Canberra only had one job.

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