Tehran’s most formidable remaining proxy footsoldiers, the Houthis, are renewing attacks on Red Sea shipping, violating a cease-fire  announced by President Trump in May after America struck bases and infrastructure in Yemen — and Communist China seems to be abetting the terror group. 

Three crew members were killed Tuesday, when a civilian carrier, the Eternity C, was attacked in the Red Sea by drones and from small boats. While the Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility, they did acknowledge attacking another ship, the MV Magic Seas, a day earlier. 

Both Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned ships have previously docked at the Israeli port of Eilat. The Houthis “attack anything that they can plausibly link to Israel,” a Yemen watcher at Israel’s Open University, Inbal Nissim Louvton, tells the Sun. Their self-assigned role as defenders of Gazans “allows them to project regional power and gain global and domestic legitimacy.”

On May 6, after American and British air forces unloaded on Yemen, the Houthis agreed to a cease-fire, vowing to cease their attacks against international shipping. The partial Red Sea blockade started in November, 2023, when the Houthis vowed support for Hamas, which launched a Mideast war a month earlier.

Nearly 20 percent of the world’s commerce travels through the Red Sea. The Houthi attacks resulted in great losses to the global economy. After the May cease-fire with America, the Houthis claimed that their fight against Israel is exempt from the pact.

After Mr. Trump announced a cease-fire with Tehran on June 22, the Iranian Houthi proxy launched several ballistic missiles and drones at Israeli civilian centers. In response, Israel hit Houthi bases and ports from the air and Navy boats in the Red Sea.

Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries, is separated from Israel by 1,200 miles. Following the near-collapse of Hezbollah and Hamas, and the end of the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis became the most prominent Iranian regional proxy. 

“The Houthis are trying to fill the gap left by the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities by tiptoeing over the ceasefire line,” a senior director at Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran program, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. Tehran and the Houthis, he adds, are “putting the burden of escalation on America: If the U.S. comes to defend the ceasefire that the Houthis are violating, that sucks the U.S. further into the region, particularly at a time when you know Trump is looking to put a cap on a few things.”

Following the June 22 strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, the Trump administration is attempting to calm the Mideast, starting with the Gaza war. “We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day cease fire,” Mr. Trump’s top negotiator, Steven Witkoff, said Tuesday. “Ten Live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released.”

The administration also seems convinced that June’s B-2 bombers and Tomahawk strikes at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan in Iran will stop global enemies from attacking America and its allies in the region. “Operation Midnight Hammer re-established deterrence,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday. “It reversed what happened in Afghanistan.”

On Tuesday, though, Berlin accused Communist China’s military of using a Red Sea ship to laser-attack German planes participating in a joint European force operating to protect freedom of navigation there. “Putting German personnel at risk and disrupting the operation is completely unacceptable,” the Berlin foreign ministry said in a statement. It summoned the Beijing ambassador to Germany for a dress-down over the incident.  

Beijing might be involved in the renewal of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, which could be the Islamic Republic’s way of reestablishing its regional power. It might signal a relaunch of a shadow war against the West.  

“You can’t let them revert back to the shadow war cost free,”  Mr. Ben Taleblu says. “We got to an overt war because they never were made to feel the price of the covert war. The U.S. and Israel have more leverage now to impose costs on them.”

Global commercial shipping once again is at risk. “After several months of calm, the resumption of deplorable attacks in the Red Sea constitutes a renewed violation of international law and freedom of navigation,” the International Maritime Organization’s secretary-general, Arsenio Dominguez, said Tuesday. “Innocent seafarers and local populations are the main victims of these attacks and the pollution they cause.”