Crew abandons damaged vessel after second Houthi strike on Dutch ship in days

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels set a Dutch-flagged cargo ship ablaze in the Gulf of Aden on Monday, officials said, injuring two mariners and forcing its crew to abandon the damaged vessel.

The attack on the Minervagracht represents the most serious attack in the Gulf of Aden, some distance away from the Red Sea where the Iranian-backed Houthis sank two vessels in July.

While the rebels did not claim responsibility for the assault, they had threatened to strike ships as part of their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, particularly as Israel moves in on Gaza City in a new ground offensive. Meanwhile, the Mideast also remains on edge after the United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

The Minervagracht had been targeted on Sept. 23 in an unsuccessful attack in the Gulf of Aden, which connects to the Red Sea via the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. On Monday, a missile launch seen by some in Yemen apparently struck the Minervagracht.

Spliethoff, the ship’s owner, described the strike as “inflicting substantial damage to the ship.” A helicopter evacuated the ship’s 19 crew members, of which two suffered injuries in the attack, it added.

The French military’s Maritime Information, Cooperation and Awareness Center identified the Houthis as carrying out the attack.

The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the possible attack. However, it can take hours or even days before the rebels claim their assaults.

The Houthis have launched missile and drone attacks on over 100 ships and on Israel in response to the war in Gaza, saying they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.

However, the Houthi attacks have targeted ships in the past with little or no connection to Israel. The U.S. Navy-overseen Joint Maritime Information Center earlier said that the Minervagracht had “no Israeli affiliations.”

The Houthi attack widens the area of the rebels’ recent assaults, as the last recorded attack on a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Aden before the Minervagracht came in August 2024.

Their attacks over the last two years have upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion of goods passed each year before the war.

The Houthis stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the war. They later became the target of an intense weekslong campaign of airstrikes ordered by President Trump before he declared a ceasefire had been reached with the rebels. The Houthis sank two vessels in July, killing at least four on board, with others believed to be held by the rebels. They sank two others earlier in the campaign.

Gambrell writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mike Corder in The Hague contributed to this report.