Iran is allowing more ships through the Strait of Hormuz, data suggests US-Israel war over Iran news

A maritime intelligence company said the number of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz has almost doubled in recent days.

Iran is allowing a small but growing number of commercial vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, according to ship tracking data.

Eight ships, including ships flying the Iranian flag, were detected in a critical waterway on Monday by automatic vessel identification systems, maritime intelligence company Windward said on Tuesday.

According to Windward, the number of transits is “almost double” the numbers seen in recent times.

Michelle Weiss Bockman, an analyst at Windward, said a growing number of ships are being rerouted through Iran’s territorial waters, suggesting Tehran is allowing “permission-based transit to friendly countries.”

“Western-aligned ships will not voluntarily enter Iranian waters, but Chinese, Indian and others likely will,” Bockman said in a post on X.

Another vessel tracking service, MarineTraffic, recorded nine shipments on Monday and Sunday, compared to five shipments in the previous two days.

Traffic through the strait, which normally carries about a fifth of global oil supplies, has fallen by more than 95 percent since the start of Israel’s war on the United States and Iran.

Daily shipments by non-Iranian vessels, mostly Chinese, Indian and Pakistani-flagged vessels, have dropped to single digits amid Iranian threats against shipping in the region.

The effective cessation of traffic by waterway caused oil prices to rise above $100 per barrel, an increase of more than 40 percent compared to before the start of the war.

Tehran has sent mixed messages about the status of the strait, which borders Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Iran’s Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghi said on Monday that the strait was “open, but closed to our enemies”, after an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman warned earlier this month that any ship trying to pass would be set on fire.

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Washington does not need help from other countries to unblock shipping, even as he rebukes NATO partners for rejecting his proposals for the deployment of an international coalition of warships to secure the waterway.

“Even though we’ve helped them so much — we have thousands of troops in different countries around the world — they don’t want to help us, which is amazing,” Trump said during a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin in the Oval Office.

The U.S. military said late Tuesday it had dropped bunker buster bombs on “hardened” Iranian missile sites near the strait.

“Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles at these sites pose a threat to international shipping in the strait,” the US Central Command said in a post on X.