Red Sea

Overview

The Red Sea is a major waterway between northeastern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Its northern route reaches the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal; its southern entrance is Bab el-Mandeb, the strait connecting it to the Gulf of Aden and the route toward the Indian Ocean. Ships sailing between Europe and much of Asia can use this passage instead of traveling around Africa. Before the Houthi attacks that began in 2023, approximately 15 percent of global merchant-ship traffic and 30 percent of seaborne container traffic passed through the Red Sea. The route also carried substantial oil exports, including an average of more than four million barrels of Saudi oil per day.

The sea’s strategic importance rests on both ends of that route. Egypt earns foreign currency from Suez Canal transit tolls, while Israel reaches the sea through Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan reaches it through neighboring Aqaba. At the southern entrance, Yemen borders Bab el-Mandeb. Threats there can affect shipping across the full length of the sea, the canal to its north and ports far beyond the region. The Red Sea crisis beginning in 2023 demonstrated how attacks near one chokepoint could disrupt international supply chains.

Geography

The Red Sea lies between Africa and Arabia. Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen have coastlines along the sea or its connected northern gulfs. At its northern end, the sea divides into the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba, with the Sinai Peninsula between them. The Suez Canal connects the Gulf of Suez route to the Mediterranean. The Gulf of Aqaba reaches Eilat and Aqaba through the Straits of Tiran, which control passage to both ports.

At the southern end, Bab el-Mandeb separates the Arabian coast from the Horn of Africa. Ships entering from the Gulf of Aden pass through the strait, cross the Red Sea and continue toward the Suez Canal if bound for the Mediterranean. Ports along this corridor include Jeddah and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, Aqaba in Jordan and Port Sudan in Sudan. Their value depends on reliable access through the narrow southern passage. In April 2024, commercial shippers regarded the northern Red Sea as safer than the southern section, where Houthi attacks kept several major companies away. Saudi Arabia’s Folk Maritime and CMA CGM consequently launched a northern Red Sea service linking Jeddah, NEOM, Ain Sokhna, Aqaba and Yanbu.

The Red Sea is also a marine ecosystem whose coral reefs support scientific research and coastal tourism. In 2019, scientists from Israel and other Red Sea countries joined a research center examining threats to the sea’s corals, including climate change, urbanization, fishing and pollution. Israel and Jordan had earlier held a joint pollution-response exercise in the Eilat–Aqaba Bay in November 2004. Proposals to expand Eilat into a large cargo hub have raised concern that intensive port construction and traffic could damage the gulf’s marine environment.

Jewish history

Israel secured its Red Sea coastline during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. On March 10, 1949, the Negev Brigade reached the Red Sea at Umm Rashrash, the site of modern Eilat; the Golani Brigade arrived about two hours later. Eilat became Israel’s southern port and its access point to maritime routes toward eastern Africa and Asia. Although its cargo volume has been much smaller than that of Israel’s Mediterranean ports, Eilat serves as a reserve port if threats interrupt maritime access farther north.

The sea later became a rescue route for Ethiopian Jews fleeing through Sudan. In 1981, Mossad began Operation Brothers, arranging secret naval departures from Sudan’s Red Sea coast. Refugees traveled roughly 600 miles by truck through Sudan to reach the coastal operation. Israeli operatives used Arous, a former diving resort, as cover. Posing as entrepreneurs from a Swiss tourism company, they could keep boats, vehicles and communications equipment at the site while organizing departures. The route joined the shared Red Sea geography of Sudan and Israel to a covert effort to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

Modern history

Control of access to Eilat became a central issue in Israel’s early wars. Egypt restricted shipping bound for the port and later blocked traffic through the Straits of Tiran. Its closure of the straits in 1967 helped precipitate the Six-Day War. The blockade obstructed Israel’s Red Sea passage through the Gulf of Aqaba. During the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, Egypt imposed a naval blockade near Bab el-Mandeb, the sea’s southern entrance. Together, the two episodes showed that Israel’s Red Sea access could be threatened at either end of the waterway.

The route has also drawn investment and military interest from powers beyond its coastal states. The United States established a military base in Djibouti in 2001, while China developed its own base there and pursued ports along trade routes associated with its Belt and Road Initiative. The United Arab Emirates gained varying degrees of access to several Red Sea ports and bases. For Sudan, Port Sudan’s position gives it importance as both a commercial outlet and a possible foreign naval foothold. Before southern Sudan’s 2011 independence referendum, oil from the south had no foreseeable Red Sea export route except through northern Sudan’s transport system, including Port Sudan.

Russia pursued a naval logistics facility near Port Sudan as part of its effort to extend influence over the route between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. In November 2020, Vladimir Putin approved a proposed 25-year agreement permitting as many as four Russian naval vessels at the facility, including nuclear-powered vessels. The plan also allowed air-defense and electronic-warfare equipment. Russian and Sudanese foreign ministers announced a deal in February 2025, while a later Sudanese government statement described the agreement as still being finalized. Separately, the Iranian regime sought naval access near Port Sudan while supplying Sudan’s armed forces with drones and munitions. These were distinct efforts to gain access, rather than established operating bases.

Israel and Jordan have considered projects that would connect Red Sea infrastructure with other national needs. They signed a 2015 memorandum on water exchanges and proposed works associated with a Red Sea–Dead Sea conveyance. An initial proposal included a desalination plant at Aqaba producing 80–100 million cubic meters of water; a later phase contemplated moving desalination brine and additional Red Sea water toward the Dead Sea. The first phase lacked full funding: a $100 million American commitment covered only part of an estimated $500 million cost. The wider canal proposal did not become an operating project, and the World Bank dropped it in 2021. Plans for a rail link between Red Sea and Mediterranean ports have likewise reflected interest in an alternative cargo corridor, alongside the need to account for Egypt’s canal interests and the Eilat gulf’s ecology.

Security

The Red Sea has long been a focus of regional competition because ships have limited alternatives when either entrance is threatened. The Iranian regime expanded naval activity near the sea and strengthened ties with Sudan, Djibouti and Eritrea. It has used naval and aerial forces and proxy organizations to threaten shipping across waterways from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. Its maritime confrontation with Israel intensified from 2019 amid increased illicit oil shipments. Iran operated warships and an intelligence ship in Red Sea waters, while Israel intercepted the Port Sudan-bound Klos-C near the Eritrea–Sudan maritime border, about 1,500 kilometers from Israel’s coast.

War in Yemen increased the significance of its Red Sea shoreline. Control of coastal ports such as Hodeidah and Mokha affects access to Bab el-Mandeb. After forces aligned with Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi retook Aden, coalition maritime operations shifted toward those ports. The 2018 Stockholm Agreement halted an advance against the Houthis at Hodeidah but left the organization in control of strategic port access and revenue. The Iran-backed Houthi terrorist organization subsequently used its position on Yemen’s coast to threaten vessels passing between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

After the October 7 attacks, the Houthis presented their maritime campaign as support for Hamas in Gaza. In October 2023, they began launching missiles and drones toward Israel and attacking international shipping. Four initial launches toward Israel from the Red Sea area were intercepted before reaching Israeli airspace. On November 19, Houthi terrorists hijacked the Galaxy Leader in the Red Sea and seized its 25 crew members. The attack demonstrated the danger to civilian crews as well as ships. On December 9, the Houthis threatened every Israel-bound vessel crossing the sea, regardless of its nationality; they also threatened to close Bab el-Mandeb.

The campaign extended beyond vessels connected to Israel. On December 4, 2023, United States Central Command recorded four attacks against three commercial ships in the southern Red Sea. Before the protective coalition formed, Houthi forces attacked or threatened international shipping and American, British and French warships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Attacks continued through 2024, including strikes on an Israel-owned commercial vessel and a separate crude-oil tanker in July. In September 2025, the Houthis launched a missile at an Israeli-owned ship about 40 nautical miles from Yanbu. Threats to crews, cargoes and passage made maritime commerce a front in the conflict involving Iran and its regional proxies.

International naval forces responded with escorts, interceptions and strikes. Combined Task Force 153 had been established in April 2022 to improve maritime security in the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb and Gulf of Aden. It later took leadership of Operation Prosperity Guardian, formed to protect commercial shipping from Houthi attacks. Naval protection enabled some individual vessels to pass, but it did not restore normal traffic: shipping companies continued diverting vessels away from the southern Red Sea and nearby waters. Egypt declined to join the operation despite the danger to Suez Canal traffic and its own national security. The continuing attacks showed that guarding selected ships could reduce immediate danger without ending the wider shipping crisis.

Present day

The Red Sea crisis has affected ports and trade well beyond the site of each attack. Houthi threats contributed to the shutdown of Eilat’s port, depriving Israel of use of its southern reserve port. Ships connecting Israel’s Mediterranean ports with the Far East faced longer voyages around Africa, higher transit costs and increased insurance costs. International shipping lines also diverted vessels from the Suez Canal route. In July 2024, Maersk warned that these diversions were disrupting its global network, with delays spreading through alternative routes and transshipment hubs. Some traffic continued through the southern Red Sea, including ships serving Saudi ports, while other operators concentrated on the safer northern section.

Egypt’s exposure differs from Israel’s but is equally tied to freedom of navigation. Every diversion from the Suez Canal can reduce toll revenue, an important source of foreign currency. Saudi oil exporters also depend on Red Sea terminals: their crude exports from those terminals rose from about 392,000 barrels per day in December 2023 to about 818,000 barrels per day in March 2024 despite the threat farther south. Port operators, coastal states and distant trading partners therefore share an interest in secure passage. Continued Houthi attacks, however, have kept decisions about routes, insurance and naval protection central to Red Sea commerce.

The sea remains a place of cooperation as well as competition. Its coastal states share interests in trade, marine research, pollution response and port access, while foreign powers seek influence near its chokepoints. For Israel, reliable passage protects Eilat and links to Asia and Africa. For Egypt, it supports the canal’s economic role. For shipping companies and their customers, it preserves a shorter route between Europe and Asia. The persistence of diversions after naval escorts began underscores the scale of the security challenge at Bab el-Mandeb and across the Red Sea.