Iran blamed for tanker strike near Strait of Hormuz, trade disrupted

A cargo ship was hit on its starboard side by a projectile about 7.5 nautical miles southeast of Oman’s port of Dahit, and the United Nations shipping agency paused an evacuation effort through the Strait of Hormuz after U.S. officials blamed Iran for the attack.

Several accounts identified the vessel as the Singapore-flagged Ever Lovely. The strike landed in one of the world’s most sensitive waterways, where the Strait of Hormuz carries a large share of global oil and gas shipments and any interruption can ripple quickly through freight rates, shipping insurance and energy prices far beyond the Gulf.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard said vessels using routes outside those it had designated would not be guaranteed safe passage, sharpening fears that the attack was part of a broader effort to police the sea lane by force. The International Maritime Organization had been working on an evacuation plan aimed at moving hundreds of stranded ships and thousands of seafarers out through the strait, and the pause showed how quickly security conditions can shut down civilian maritime traffic.

The strike also complicated U.S. diplomacy in the region. Marco Rubio met Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers in Bahrain on June 25, 2026, on the final stop of a Gulf tour that also took him to the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Rubio told Gulf allies that any deal with Iran would take their interests and security concerns into account, as Washington sought backing for the Trump administration’s preliminary Iran accord.

That effort unfolded under pressure from earlier violence in June, when attacks near the Strait of Hormuz killed three Indian seafarers on an oil tanker and helped unsettle oil markets. With another tanker now hit and Tehran warning over access to the waterway, the immediate issue is no longer abstract diplomacy but whether one of the world’s main energy arteries can stay open for trade.