![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Iran-US-Map_31617.jpg\")
Map showing where a vessel was seized off the UAE coast. (AP Digital Embed)\nSeizures and attacks in Hormuz ongoing<\/p>\n
By ADAM SCHRECK and NATALIE MELZER<\/p>\n
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 A ship anchored off the east coast of the United Arab Emirates has been seized and is heading toward Iranian waters, the British military said Thursday.<\/p>\n
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said it received reports that the vessel was taken by unauthorized personnel while anchored 38 nautical miles northeast of the UAE port of Fujairah, near the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Indian authorities also announced Thursday that an Indian-flagged cargo ship sank off the coast of Oman after an attack sparked a fire aboard the vessel while it was en route from Somalia to Sharjah on Wednesday, without identifying who attacked the ship.<\/p>\n
Map showing where a vessel was seized off the UAE coast. (AP Digital Embed)
\nSeizures and attacks in Hormuz ongoing<\/p>\n
The situation in the\u00a0Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, a critical waterway through which a fifth of the world\u2019s oil used to pass through on a typical day, continues to capture the world\u2019s attention as Iran\u2019s grip has\u00a0jolted the world economy<\/a>\u00a0and caused a\u00a0spike in fuel prices<\/a>\u00a0that has rippled through other sectors with effects far beyond the Middle East.<\/p>\n UKMTO did not name the ship seized Thursday and said it is investigating. There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the seizure.<\/p>\n Fujairah is an important oil export terminal and the UAE\u2019s main port outside of the Persian Gulf. It has been repeatedly attacked during the war with Iran.<\/p>\n The attack on the Indian-flagged cargo ship Haji Ali occurred Wednesday, according to Mukesh Mangal, a senior official in India\u2019s shipping ministry. He said all 14 Indian crew members were rescued by Oman\u2019s coast guard and were safe.<\/p>\n India\u2019s foreign ministry called the incident \u201cunacceptable\u201d and condemned continued attacks on commercial shipping and civilian mariners. The ministry did not identify who carried out the attack.<\/p>\n Seizures come at tense diplomatic moment<\/p>\n The seizure comes as U.S. President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on a\u00a0much-anticipated visit to Beijing<\/a>. The leaders\u2019 talks were expected to focus on the war with Iran.<\/p>\n Iranian semiofficial news agencies reported that Chinese ships began passing through the Strait of Hormuz Wednesday night under new Iranian protocols. According to the reports, Tehran agreed to facilitate the passage of several Chinese vessels after requests from China\u2019s foreign minister and Beijing\u2019s ambassador to Iran. The ships began their passage as Trump arrived in China on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n The seizures also happened hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he had quietly visited the UAE during the\u00a0Israeli-U.S. war<\/a>\u00a0with Iran, though the UAE swiftly denied that any secret visit had occurred.<\/p>\n The Gulf nation\u00a0normalized relations with Israel<\/a>\u00a0in 2020. Iran has criticized that agreement and has repeatedly suggested over the years that Israel maintained a military and intelligence presence in the UAE.<\/p>\n Israeli leaders have made\u00a0occasional visits<\/a>\u00a0to the UAE in recent years after normalizing relations.<\/p>\n Netanyahu\u2019s decision to go public with the sensitive meeting was likely an effort to drum up local support for his flagging party ahead of Israeli elections, said Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv defense think tank Institute of National Security Studies.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing, it\u2019s the deepest cooperation we\u2019ve ever had\u2026 that during a war, Israel is defending an Arab state against Iran, it shows how complicated the Middle East is,\u201d said Guzansky.<\/p>\n The UAE is trying to highlight its cooperation with Israel but not with Netanyahu and his government, Guzansky said, because many in the UAE are against Israel\u2019s policies in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re trying to differentiate between security cooperation and cooperating with this government,\u201d said Guzansky, who previously worked for the national security council within the Israeli prime minister\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Iran defends right to seize ships<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s judiciary spokesperson told the state-owned Iran Daily newspaper on Thursday Iran has the legal and judicial right to seize oil tankers connected to the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz because the U.S. has violated international maritime laws and committed piracy. The spokesperson, Asghar Jahangir, did not explicitly refer to the tanker seized on Thursday.<\/p>\n Iran seized a number of ships, including a tanker identified as the Ocean Koi, last week, saying it was attempting to disrupt oil exports and Iranian interests, according to the official IRNA news agency. It said the tanker was seized in the Gulf of Oman and was carrying Iranian oil when it was boarded and taken to Iran\u2019s southern coast.<\/p>\n The U.S. sanctioned the Ocean Koi in February as part of a \u201cshadow fleet\u201d that has been transporting Iranian oil.<\/p>\n 3 Israelis injured by a Hezbollah drone<\/p>\n A Hezbollah drone exploded inside Israel, injuring three civilians, two of them severely, according to the Israeli military and hospitals. Israel and Hezbollah have traded near-constant fire across the border despite a\u00a0U.S.-brokered ceasefire<\/a>\u00a0on April 17. It was the first instance of civilians injured by Hezbollah projectiles since the ceasefire, according to reports from Israel\u2019s rescue services, Magen David Adom.<\/p>\n Hezbollah has frequently used drones<\/a>\u00a0to attack Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and over the border in northern Israel. The Israeli air force has struck areas across southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n Lebanon and Israel are scheduled to hold another round of\u00a0direct talks<\/a>\u00a0in Washington on Thursday, as the Trump administration\u00a0pushes for a breakthrough<\/a>\u00a0between the two neighbors that have been in a state of war since Israel was created in 1948.<\/p>\n The United Nations has also accused Hezbollah of drone strikes near its peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u2019 message to both sides is that they must observe the ceasefire and stop all attacks, U.N. deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said.<\/p>\n Lebanon\u2019s Health Ministry said Wednesday that since the war began on March 2, 2,896 people have been killed and 8,824 wounded. Eighteen Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, and Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By ADAM SCHRECK and NATALIE MELZER DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 A ship anchored off the east…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[196,37,39,709,225],"class_list":{"0":"post-113506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-persian-gulf","8":"tag-iran-war","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-persian-gulf","11":"tag-uae","12":"tag-us-iran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116572866802346682","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}