An Indian crew member remains missing after the Cyprus-flagged container ship GFS Galaxy was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, Cypriot authorities said. The missing man holds the rank of third engineer. Cyprus's Deputy Ministry of Shipping said the vessel was struck by an unidentified projectile while transiting the waterway, and that the rest of the 23-member crew abandoned ship on a lifeboat and were later rescued by the Omani navy. The vessel is now under tow toward the nearest safe anchorage at the UAE port of Khor Fakkan, with a towing team continuing the search for the missing crew member.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy said it had struck and halted the vessel after it, along with other ships, attempted to transit through an unauthorised route despite warnings to correct course, accusing the crew of endangering maritime security by switching off the ship's tracking systems.
The attack came as the United States and Iran exchanged heavy air assaults on Monday, the latest escalation in a cycle of strikes and counterstrikes. Tehran said it had targeted American military assets across the Gulf, including in Bahrain, while Washington accused Iran of attacking another vessel in the region. The Bahrain Defence Force said its air defence systems had intercepted and destroyed several Iranian missile and drone attacks, adding that Iran continued to target civilians in the kingdom.
US President Donald Trump said in a phone interview with Reuters on Sunday that American forces were prevailing in the conflict. The renewed hostilities cast further doubt over the future of an interim US-Iranian agreement reached last month after 60 days of negotiations, which had aimed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war.
Tehran announced the closure of the strait on Saturday following what it described as an unauthorised transit, and confirmed on Sunday that passage remained suspended. Shipping tracking firm MarineTraffic said vessel activity through the strait fell by around 52% between 10 and 12 July compared with the previous week, while ship tracking data from Kpler showed only six vessels passed through the waterway on Sunday, the lowest figure in five weeks.
Elsewhere in the region, Yemen's defence ministry said its armed forces had struck the runway at Sanaa International Airport to prevent an Iranian plane from landing. Sanaa is controlled by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, while Yemen's internationally recognised government operates from Aden with the backing of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The Houthis subsequently accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out its own strikes on the airport, with a Houthi military spokesman warning the move would not go unanswered.
In Iran, state media reported fresh casualties from American strikes. Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency said one person was killed and seven wounded in a US strike on Isfahan province, while state broadcaster IRNA reported two people killed and three injured in strikes on the city of Abadan in the southwest. Iran has not issued an official nationwide death toll since large-scale attacks resumed last week, though reports from state media and individual incident statements suggest around 20 people have been killed in the renewed strikes. Earlier in the war, thousands of people were killed, mostly in Iran and Lebanon.
The EU's energy task force said on Monday that jet fuel supplies across the bloc remained stable overall, citing increased EU refinery production and supplies secured from other regions, though it cautioned that the situation remained volatile. Oil prices climbed on Monday, with Jane Foley, head of FX strategy at Rabobank, telling Reuters that markets remained considerably more nervous than they had been a few weeks earlier, even as consensus still points toward an eventual deal.
Sources: Reuters
