Israeli ports remain unaffected by missile attacks

Haifa Port, Israel (Photo: Reuters/Phaata)

As the world watches with bated breath as missile attacks between Israel and Iran continue for a fourth day, there have been no reports of disruptions to maritime traffic at ports in the danger zone.

Over the weekend, Iranian missiles targeted Haifa, Israel's busiest container port, and a nearby oil refinery. There were no reports of casualties or serious damage.

Haifa handles 30 percent of Israel's imports through terminals owned by Indian operator Adani.

“Despite the escalated security situation, operation in the Israeli ports of Ashdod and Haifa is continuing as usual,” Haifa-based Zim (NYSE: ZIM) said in a customer note. Zim vessels are still calling at Israeli ports as scheduled, and bookings to and from Israel continue to be accepted.

An operational update from forwarder Kuehne & Nagel also rated operations at Haifa and Ashdod as “business as usual,” with vessel wait times of just over a day over the past week.

On Monday, the Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) assessed the regional threat level as “significant,” as attacks between Iran and Israel continue to escalate regional tensions. JMIC, a multinational information exchange center set up in 2024 to monitor Houthi attacks on commercial shipping, said the maritime threat level was “elevated,” “due to electronic interference and overall instability. Vessels report issues with AIS (automatic identification spoofing) and GPS jamming, and navigation issues, especially near Port of Bandar Abbas and the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iran’s parliament has previously discussed closing the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that Persian Gulf ports rely on for access to global maritime trade routes. A closure, which has not occurred since 1984, could choke off 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies.

According to Jean-Paul Rodrigue of Texas A&M University, a total of 30 million TEU of container traffic moves in the vicinity of the strait. “A large share concerning transshipment, with Jebel Ali in Dubai as the major hub. Disruptions would, therefore, involve a multiplicity of shipping networks, many unrelated to the oil trade.”

Kuehne & Nagel assessed operations at Jebel Ali, the Gulf’s busiest port, as “business as usual” and Oman’s Salalah Port as “heavily disrupted” not due to military threats but due to the monsoon.

Maersk subsidiary APM Terminals is the main operator at Salalah. And while shipping lines have yet to issue any war-related warnings, just over a decade ago Iran seized the Maersk Tigris container ship in the strait in a contractual dispute over missing containers. The ship and its crew were released a month later.

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Source: Phaata.com (According to Freight Waves)

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