A vital artery of global commerce has become a battlefield. Months into their self-declared war on Israel and its allies, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels are turning the Red Sea into a proving ground for modern maritime insurgency.

In retaliation against Israel and the Gaza war, Houthi rebels have intensified their maritime offensive — sinking two ships in less than two weeks and killing at least four sailors and triggering a sharp rise in insurance premiums and freight costs across global shipping lanes. 

The attacks, experts warn, suggest a strategic evolution in both capability and intent, and are raising alarm bells across Washington, Jerusalem, and key NATO capitals.

“The Houthis have clearly proven to a whole host of adversaries that they are not spooked by traditional deterrence measures,” Senior Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Iran Program, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the New York Sun. 

“So long as shippers remain hesitant or keep transferring costs onto consumers, the Houthi terror strategy will have worked. The challenge for any outside force looking to use military means against the group is how to handicap them.”

In what the United States Department of State called “unprovoked” acts of aggression, Houthi rebels sank two commercial vessels in the Red Sea within days — first the MV Tutor on July 12, killing one crew member, then the MV Verbena, where three sailors died in a missile strike that set the ship ablaze. 

The attacks have stunned the global shipping industry, driven up insurance premiums, with war-risk coverage now making Red Sea routes prohibitively expensive for many carriers, and dealt a severe blow to United States and United Kingdom-led efforts to secure the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait. 

Control of the Bab el-Mandeb allows the Houthis to project power far beyond Yemen’s borders — disrupting global trade and gaining strategic leverage over adversaries. 

Washington’s Pushback 

Since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas crossed into Israel killing 1,200 and taking more than 200 hostages, the United States has launched over 1,000 air and naval strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, targeting missile launchers, drone facilities, and radar sites as part of Operation Rough Rider. The campaign inflicted heavy losses but also drew criticism over civilian casualties. 

A Washington-brokered ceasefire was reached on May 6, 2025, with the Houthis agreeing to halt attacks on American vessels yet reserving the right to strike Israeli-linked ships. The truce collapsed by early July, and Houthi attacks resumed almost immediately. 

The bombing campaign has failed to stifle the group’s capabilities. Instead, the rebels appear emboldened, viewing their campaign as a powerful tool of asymmetric warfare and a means of exerting political leverage.

Does this mean the Iran-backed militant outfit has the upper hand in the ongoing tit-for-tat?

“Shipping and insurance companies are risk-adverse, so it doesn’t take much to put them off using the Suez Canal, Red Sea and Strait of Mandab,” the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Yemen between 2015 and 2017 and a senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, Edmund Fitton-Brown, tells the Sun. “And U.S. and allied forces are not well adapted to playing the kind of whack-a-mole that the Houthis present.”

A Strategic Shift — and a Regional Signal

While the Houthis have long claimed that their maritime strikes are aimed at Israeli or United States-linked interests in response to the Gaza conflict, shipping data indicates that their targeting has grown indiscriminate. In many cases, ships with tenuous or no ties to the West have been attacked, including those flagged by neutral countries or carrying Muslim crews.

Some ship captains are now painting messages on their vessels, such as “ALL MUSLIM CREW,” in a desperate attempt to signal neutrality and avoid becoming targets. What’s most concerning to intelligence and naval officials, however, is the level of sophistication now evident in the attacks. 

“The U.S. strikes have done nothing to eliminate Houthi capabilities and resolve. In fact, the group’s political cache in the region arguably increased when they became the target of U.S. airstrikes,” Director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities, Rose Kelanic, tells the Sun. 

“These aren’t million-dollar pieces of equipment, but rather, drones that might cost as little as $2,000 a pop. They can easily rebuild and resupply themselves, as well as hide their small arms in caves and bunkers that are difficult for U.S. forces to locate and destroy from the air.”

As Iran’s grip loosens over groups like Hezbollah and Iraq’s Shia militias, its support for the Houthis has only deepened — more precise, more technological. Ghost fleets, GPS spoofing, and radar-evading shipments now fuel the Houthis’ growing arsenal

Tehran is reportedly facilitating weapons shipments using maritime “ghost fleets” that manipulate Automatic Identification Systems, effectively cloaking ships by spoofing GPS signals and rerouting transponders.

According to Mr. Taleblu, “even before the neutering of Hezbollah and Hamas by Israel, by virtue of material capabilities alone, the Houthis could be considered the most important proxy in Iran’s constellation of terror groups called the Axis of Resistance.”

 “The Houthis not only have served as part of an Iranian weapons arsenal in exile, but they are the only members with medium-range ballistic missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles,” he continued. 

Mr. Fitton-Brown noted that “Tehran’s commitment to the Houthis remains stable.”

“They certainly view them as the most powerful and committed proxy, now that Lebanese Hezbollah is preoccupied with its own survival,” he explained. “At the same time, Iran remembers Trump’s threat to hold them accountable for Houthi actions. That is why the Houthis left it (until) a fortnight after Iran’s ceasefire with the U.S. and Israel to launch this latest phase of their campaign.”

If unchecked, the Red Sea crisis could prove that Iran’s use of proxy groups to fight its battles works, where limited risk yields disproportionate global disruption.

“Deterrence of the Houthis is not straightforward. They are resilient and will stop and start hostilities largely undeterred by air strikes from their strategy,” said Mr. Fitton-Brown. “They know that the U.S. felt the financial and equipment cost of the campaign.”

What Happens Next?

The Houthis are playing a long game — buoyed by Iranian backing and the unresolved war in Gaza, they show no signs of de-escalating. Experts say the group now seeks not just leverage but legitimacy, using maritime attacks as tools of both dominance and diplomacy. 

As Washington’s strikes fail to deter them, each day of inaction reinforces a stark truth: the Houthis have evolved into architects of a modern maritime insurgency — one with no clear end in sight.

Mr. Taleblu pointed out that, although “there is no doubt that the Houthis have grafted onto the Palestinian cause as one of their own,” that “should not inhibit the West or others from using all means necessary to contest the Houthis when they threaten their interests.”

Mr. Fitton-Brown surmised that the United States and its allies have “two main options for deterring the Houthis.”

“One is to follow through on the threat to hold Iran responsible for Houthi actions. If Iran feels real pain every time the Houthis sink a ship or carry out another act of international aggression, for example, targeted U.S. strikes on IRGC assets, Iran may start to put real pressure on them to stop putting it at risk,” he said. 

“The second is more painstaking and uncertain, but also the only fully effective option: to tip the scales of the civil war against the Houthis. This would require deployment of air power and Special Forces, but also coalition building with the Saudis, Emiratis, Egyptians and others; and with the Internationally Recognized Government and the Southern forces.”

Other analysts, however, propose a different solution to resolving the Houthi problem in the Red Sea. 

“The U.S. needs to push Israel to end its assault on Gaza,” added Ms. Kelanic. “That is the root of the problem and why the Houthis are staging these attacks in the first place —  to protest Israeli military operations in Gaza.”