Yemen's Houthi rebels (an Iranian-aligned militant group controlling much of northern Yemen) resumed attacks on Red Sea shipping on July 22, 2026, ending a nine-month pause and imposing a naval blockade targeting Saudi Arabia, their longtime adversary. The renewed campaign has struck at least four oil tankers and threatens Saudi Arabia's workaround strategy of rerouting oil exports through its Red Sea ports after the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed in early 2026 following a U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran. The escalation — compounded by suspected Iranian drone strikes on a gas storage facility in Egypt's Mediterranean port of Damietta — risks rendering two further maritime chokepoints, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Suez Canal corridor, as disrupted as Hormuz, with potentially severe consequences for global energy supply chains.