THERE is no end in sight to Red Sea attacks and the threat that the Houthis pose to commercial shipping will remain long after a cessation in the current hostilities, analysts say.

Nearly 90 ships have been targeted or attacked since the Houthis announced their intention to target merchant ships in November.

The Houthis have said the attacks are a direct response to the Israel-Hamas war and are being carried out in support of the Palestinians.

While analysts say the conflict is a guise for the Houthis to be disruptive and garner popular support at home, it is generally agreed that a ceasefire or de-escalation in Gaza would slow attacks in the Red Sea.

The problem is that analysts are not expecting tensions in the Middle East to ease anytime soon.

“A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in the coming few months seems unlikely,” said Dragonfly Intelligence MENA intelligence analyst Zoe Ciaccio.

“High military tensions in the region were already having a negative impact on ceasefire talks, but the death of Hamas’ leader and main negotiator — Ismail Haniyeh — in a targeted assassination in Tehran on July 31 will probably only further delay this.”

Haniyeh’s replacement, Yahya Sinwar, is a hardliner within Hamas and is likely to take a harsher stance on negotiations than Haniyeh.

Any further escalation or expansion of the conflict also has the potential to worsen the security situation in the Red Sea.

“Iran funds and trains the Houthis and they are part of Tehran’s so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’, meaning that they would also be highly likely to ramp up the pace of their attacks on commercial vessels and against Israel in the event of an Israel-Hezbollah or a broader regional war,” said Ciaccio.

If a ceasefire were agreed and held, there is still no guarantee that the Houthis would stop targeting all the ships designated under their so-called target profile.

“Even if a ceasefire were to be agreed, there is a realistic possibility that Ansar Allah [the Houthis] will continue with its attacks, targeting US, British, and Israeli ships in response to the airstrikes conducted against their regime by the air forces of the three countries,” said Janes senior research analyst James Trigg.

A significant faction within the shipping industry has either cut Red Sea business or has opted to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid transiting the Bab el Mandeb and becoming a Houthi target.

Data suggests that, as time goes on, more shipowners are becoming reluctant to use the shipping lane, with transits falling month on month.

In July, some 905 cargo-carrying vessels sailed through the Bab el Mandeb, equating to approximately 66m dwt.

This is a 3% decrease in transits compared to June and is 60% lower than the passings recorded in July 2023.

For those that have rerouted to avoid the Red Sea, the question of when they will return to these transits is not an easy one to answer.

“We are not the ones judging when the situation is safe. It is not on shipping lines to decide,” a spokesman for Hapag-Lloyd told Lloyd’s List.

Safety is paramount to the return of normal operations in the Red Sea. However, “safe” is hard to define, making the path to normalisation difficult to define.

Commander Knut Evensen from the Royal Norwegian Navy and part of the Joint Maritime Information Center discussed the topic of how and when shipping will return to the Red Sea in the past week’s Lloyd’s List podcast.

JMIC exists to inform the industry on maritime security issues, but because companies have different risk appetites, it will ultimately be down to each company to make the call on when it is safe to resume Red Sea activity.

The current situation reflects the variation in risk appetites across the industry because, despite a significant rerouting, some 200 ships do transit the Bab el Mandeb on a weekly basis.

Importantly, risk tolerance and risk appetites are dynamic, and it is possible that something beyond a sustained decline in Houthi attacks could see ships return to the Red Sea.

“Considerations can change. It is possible that if something happened that made the Cape of Good Hope much more expensive, then maybe some would decide to sail through the Red Sea if this was a far more competitive option,” said director at Control Risks Cormac Mc Garry.

In terms of Hapag-Lloyd, the container line company is focused firmly on safety.

“In this situation, we need, and we want to be, extra careful with our seafarers,” the spokesman said.

“What is happening is not piracy. It is terrorism, and we have not had similar situations in the past few decades. We never have had to deal with drones and missiles. This is something which is absolutely new, absolutely horrific and absolutely dangerous.”

The Houthis and the capabilities that they have demonstrated will be a long-term risk for the shipping industry beyond the war between Israel and Hamas.

“The Houthis occupy a geostrategic location over the Bab el Mandeb and even if there was a cessation of hostilities, something could arise in the future where they use this position again. I can see the Red Sea returning to a sense of security at some point, but can also imagine the next scenario which prompts a future set of attacks,” said Mc Garry.

The threat is going to hang over the Red Sea for a very long time, he added.