For more than a year, Yemen’s Houthi rebels turned the Red Sea into one of the most dangerous shipping corridors on earth, attacking 178 vessels, sinking four ships, and killing at least eight seafarers. But the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in joint US-Israeli strikes on February 28, 2026, has forced the Houthis into a strategic crossroads that few predicted: rather than escalating in solidarity with their patron, they are staying remarkably quiet. As of March 7, 2026, the group has released only three subdued declarations that read more as political solidarity than military commitment — a sharp contrast to the drone and missile barrages that defined 2024 and most of 2025. This restraint is not born of loyalty or principle.
It is a cold calculation. The Houthis are sitting on a fragile ceasefire brokered by Oman in May 2025, they have only recently begun rehabilitating seaports critical to their economy, and they have no interest in reopening multiple fronts in their own civil war. The Stimson Center frames the dilemma bluntly: the Houthis must decide whether to join Iran’s war or abandon Iran. For now, they appear to be choosing self-preservation. This article examines how the Houthi maritime campaign unfolded, why it paused, what Iran’s collapse means for the group’s future, and why global shipping remains far from safe despite the current lull.
Table of Contents
- How Did the Houthi Red Sea Attacks Disrupt Global Shipping — and What Changed After Iran’s Collapse?
- The Ceasefire That Almost Held — and the Violations That Undermined It
- The Death of Khamenei and the Houthis’ Strategic Bind
- Self-Preservation vs. Proxy Loyalty — the Houthis’ Real Calculation
- Why the Red Sea Remains Dangerous Despite the Pause
- The Human Cost That Gets Lost in the Geopolitics
- What Comes Next — and Whether the Houthis Can Stay on the Sidelines
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
How Did the Houthi Red Sea Attacks Disrupt Global Shipping — and What Changed After Iran’s Collapse?
The Houthi campaign began in October 2023, ostensibly in solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war. What started as selective targeting of Israeli-linked vessels quickly expanded into an indiscriminate assault on commercial shipping. The numbers are staggering: 178 vessels attacked, the M/V Rubymar sunk on March 2, 2024, while carrying 21,000 tons of fertilizer, and Suez Canal transits plummeting from 2,068 ships in November 2023 to roughly 877 by October 2024. The Russell Group estimated approximately one trillion dollars in goods were disrupted between October 2023 and May 2024 alone, with the Houthis blocking an estimated ten billion dollars in cargo per day at peak disruption.
Major shipping lines had no choice but to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, adding ten to fourteen extra days on Asia-to-Europe routes and inflating freight costs across the board. By mid-January 2026, only 26 containerships per week were transiting the Red Sea corridor compared to the pre-crisis average of roughly 80 per week. This was not a minor inconvenience — it was a restructuring of global trade flows that rippled through supply chains, raised consumer prices, and strained insurance markets. The attacks demonstrated that a relatively modest insurgent force, equipped with Iranian-supplied drones and missiles, could hold a chokepoint of global commerce hostage for well over a year.
The Ceasefire That Almost Held — and the Violations That Undermined It
The path to the current uneasy quiet was neither smooth nor linear. On January 20, 2025, after the Gaza ceasefire took hold, the Houthis announced they would stop attacking non-israeli ships but would continue targeting Israeli-linked vessels. This partial ceasefire offered little comfort to shipping companies uncertain whether their cargo or charterers had any Israeli connection. On March 15, 2025, the United States launched operation Rough Rider, conducting dozens of airstrikes across seven Yemeni provinces and killing 53 people on the first day alone — a massive escalation that underscored Washington’s frustration with half-measures. The breakthrough came on May 6, 2025, when Oman brokered a formal US-Houthi ceasefire.
The Houthis agreed to halt Red Sea attacks, though they explicitly stated the deal did not apply to Israel. For roughly two months, commercial shipping cautiously began to test the corridor. Then, on July 6, 2025, the Houthis violated the ceasefire by sinking the Liberian-flagged Magic Seas, killing three mariners. However, the broader trajectory still bent toward de-escalation: by October 10, 2025, the Houthis halted attacks again after a broader Gaza peace plan took effect, and in November 2025, they formally signaled the end of their maritime campaign in a letter to Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades — conditional on Israel maintaining its ceasefire. The lesson here is that Houthi ceasefires come with asterisks. Any agreement that excludes Israeli-linked shipping or depends on conditions the Houthis do not control is inherently fragile.
The Death of Khamenei and the Houthis’ Strategic Bind
The joint US-Israeli military strikes on Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — his death confirmed by Iranian state media on March 1, 2026 — changed the strategic landscape for every Iranian proxy in the region. Iran had already been weakened before the strikes: it lost its ally Assad in Syria in 2024, saw key proxy leaders eliminated, and watched its economy buckle under sanctions and sustained domestic protests. The strikes were the culmination of a long decline, not its beginning. For the Houthis, the initial reaction was predictable. Two senior Houthi officials told reporters the group had decided to restart missile and drone operations against Red Sea shipping.
But as of March 7, 2026, those threats have not materialized. The Houthis have released only three subdued declarations — language that falls far short of the operational posture they maintained throughout 2024. This gap between rhetoric and action is the clearest signal that the group is weighing its options carefully. Restarting attacks would mean inviting a reprise of Operation Rough Rider at a moment when the United States has already demonstrated its willingness to strike Iranian targets directly. It would also jeopardize the fragile ceasefire that has allowed the Houthis to begin reopening seaports they desperately need for economic survival.
Self-Preservation vs. Proxy Loyalty — the Houthis’ Real Calculation
The Houthis have long benefited from Iranian weapons, training, and financial support. But the relationship has always been more transactional than ideological. Unlike Hezbollah, which maintained deep institutional ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Houthis emerged from a distinctly Yemeni political grievance — the marginalization of the Zaidi community in northern Yemen. They adopted the “Axis of Resistance” branding because it served their interests, not because they were created as an Iranian proxy in the way Western commentary sometimes implies. This distinction matters now. The Houthis are actively seeking to project themselves as an independent faction, not subject to Tehran’s directives.
Joining Iran’s war against the United States and Israel would undercut that narrative entirely. It would also force them to fight on multiple fronts: against the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, against potential US military strikes, and against the economic consequences of losing the port access they have only recently begun rehabilitating. The tradeoff is stark. Solidarity with Iran offers symbolic prestige within the resistance axis but tangible military and economic costs. Restraint offers the Houthis a chance to consolidate territorial control, rebuild infrastructure, and position themselves as a governing authority rather than an insurgent militia. For a group that controls the capital Sanaa and most of Yemen’s populated western highlands, governance is increasingly a more attractive proposition than perpetual war.
Why the Red Sea Remains Dangerous Despite the Pause
The current Houthi restraint should not be mistaken for a return to normalcy in the Red Sea corridor. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped approximately 70 percent following the strikes on Iran, with over 150 ships anchoring outside the strait to avoid risk. Xeneta, a leading shipping analytics firm, has stated that the US-Israeli strikes on Iran have “shattered prospects” of container shipping returning to the Red Sea in 2026. The problem is no longer just the Houthis — it is the entire regional security environment.
Even if the Houthis never fire another missile, the precedent they set has permanently altered how insurers, shipping lines, and port authorities assess Red Sea risk. War risk premiums spiked during the campaign and have not returned to pre-crisis levels. Shipping companies that invested in Cape of Good Hope routing — building new logistical relationships, adjusting schedules, absorbing higher fuel costs — are reluctant to reverse those decisions based on a conditional Houthi ceasefire that has already been violated once. The warning for policymakers and the shipping industry alike is that route diversions driven by security crises tend to be sticky. The Suez Canal’s lost traffic may not come back quickly, and the economic consequences for Egypt — which depends heavily on canal toll revenues — are severe and ongoing.
The Human Cost That Gets Lost in the Geopolitics
Behind the statistics about disrupted trade and rerouted vessels are real human casualties that rarely make headlines. At least eight to nine seafarers were killed during the Houthi campaign. Three crew members died when the Magic Seas was sunk in July 2025.
The crew of the M/V Rubymar barely escaped before their ship went down carrying 21,000 tons of ammonium phosphate fertilizer — an environmental hazard that received far less attention than the military dimensions of the crisis. Merchant mariners, many from developing countries in South and Southeast Asia, were asked to transit a war zone to keep global commerce moving. Their unions and advocacy organizations have repeatedly called for stronger protections and clearer rules of engagement, but those calls have been drowned out by the geopolitical noise.
What Comes Next — and Whether the Houthis Can Stay on the Sidelines
The coming weeks will be decisive. If Iran’s post-Khamenei leadership stabilizes and avoids further direct confrontation with the United States and Israel, the Houthis will have less pressure to act. If the situation in Iran deteriorates into internal chaos or a broader regional war, the Houthis may feel compelled to demonstrate solidarity — or may see an opportunity to extract concessions from Washington in exchange for continued restraint.
The INSS and other regional analysts note that the Houthis have been unusually quiet on the “Yemeni front,” suggesting internal deliberation rather than operational preparation. But the group retains its missile and drone capabilities, and the Red Sea corridor remains within striking distance of Houthi-controlled territory. The infrastructure of disruption is still in place, even if the political will to use it has — for now — subsided. The only honest assessment is that the Red Sea’s future as a commercial corridor depends on a constellation of factors that no single actor controls.
Conclusion
The Houthi Red Sea campaign was the most significant disruption to global maritime trade in decades, affecting 178 vessels, reshaping shipping routes, and exposing how vulnerable critical trade corridors remain to asymmetric threats. The killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader has paradoxically produced a moment of Houthi restraint rather than escalation — a decision driven by self-interest, not deference. The group is calculating that the costs of restarting attacks outweigh the symbolic benefits of solidarity with a weakened patron, and that consolidating their hold on Yemen matters more than fighting someone else’s war.
For consumers, businesses, and policymakers, the takeaway is uncomfortable but clear: the Red Sea crisis is not over, it is merely paused. Shipping costs remain elevated, route diversions persist, and the regional security environment has arguably worsened with the strikes on Iran. Whether the Houthis resume attacks depends on variables ranging from Gaza ceasefire compliance to internal Iranian politics to US military posture in the region. The only prudent assumption is that the corridor will remain high-risk for the foreseeable future, and that supply chains built around Red Sea transit need contingency plans that account for that reality.
Frequently Asked Questions
Have the Houthis officially ended their Red Sea shipping attacks?
Not permanently. In November 2025, they signaled the end of their maritime campaign in a letter to Hamas, but this was conditional on Israel maintaining the Gaza ceasefire. Their capabilities remain intact, and two senior officials initially said they would restart operations after the strikes on Iran — though as of March 2026, they have not done so.
How much has the Houthi campaign cost global trade?
The Russell Group estimated approximately one trillion dollars in goods were disrupted between October 2023 and May 2024. At peak disruption, the Houthis were reportedly blocking roughly ten billion dollars in cargo per day. Indirect costs from rerouting, higher insurance premiums, and delayed deliveries push the total figure considerably higher.
Why are the Houthis not joining Iran’s fight after Khamenei’s death?
Several factors: the 2025 US-Houthi ceasefire is still technically in effect, they have recently begun rehabilitating seaports critical to their economy, they want to avoid reopening multiple fronts in the Yemeni civil war, and they are actively trying to present themselves as an independent faction rather than an Iranian proxy.
Is it safe for ships to transit the Red Sea now?
Not reliably. While Houthi attacks have paused, war risk premiums remain elevated, only about 26 containerships per week are transiting compared to the pre-crisis 80, and Xeneta has said the strikes on Iran have shattered prospects for a return to normal Red Sea shipping in 2026. Most major shipping lines continue routing via the Cape of Good Hope.
How has the Suez Canal been affected?
Transit numbers collapsed from 2,068 ships in November 2023 to roughly 877 by October 2024. The lost revenue is a serious economic blow to Egypt, which depends on canal tolls as a major source of foreign currency.