Red Sea Ship Attack Kills 6: Trump Says "Watching and Waiting is the Strategy"

[Anchor]

Gunfire has erupted simultaneously in the waters on both sides of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East. In the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military attacked a cargo ship, while at the entrance to the Red Sea, a missile attack by the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels left six people dead. Amidst these developments, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that simply watching and waiting is the current countermeasure.

Reporting by Correspondent Kim Yong-tae.

[Reporter]

Black smoke rises from a small cargo ship.

The upper structure of the vessel bears clear marks of an attack.

Yemen's pro-Iranian Houthi rebels attacked an Egyptian-owned cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, located at the entrance to the Red Sea, which serves as an alternative route to the Strait of Hormuz.

Yemeni government sources stated that the Houthi rebels fired three ballistic missiles, killing six people, including three Pakistani crew members.

The Houthis, who declared a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia on July 20 [2026], claimed that the vessel was transporting military supplies for Saudi Arabia. This marks the first time that casualties have occurred from a Houthi attack on a merchant vessel since the outbreak of the war with Iran.

On the same day, in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. military helicopters attacked a Panama-flagged ship.

The U.S. Central Command stated that because the vessel was heading toward an Iranian port and "attempted to violate the maritime blockade against Iran, its steering gear was disabled using two air-to-surface precision-guided missiles."

As gunfire sounded simultaneously across both major crude oil transport chokepoints, international oil prices rose once again.

Although a sense of crisis has heightened, U.S. President Donald Trump remarked that one of the strategies against Iran is to "take it easy and watch how terrible the situation is for Iran."

Critics pointed out that arguing Iran will fail even if left alone is effectively an admission that there is no countermeasure in place.

[Donald Trump / U.S. President: We have total control of the Strait of Hormuz. We have control, not them (Iran). We've got it.]

Contradicting Trump's remarks, Mohsen Rezaei, the newly appointed secretary of Iran's Expediency Discernment Council and a hardliner, raised his voice, declaring that the Strait of Hormuz will never be opened until the United States ends the war and releases frozen funds.

(Video Editing: Lee Seung-yeol, Design: Kim Min-young)

※