Tanker attack off Oman injures 12 in latest strike on Gulf shipping

A Panama-flagged oil tanker was struck by a projectile while transiting the Strait of Hormuz off Oman's northern coast on Tuesday, injuring 12 of its 19 crew members, most of them Indian nationals, officials in Oman and India said. The attack is the latest in a string of strikes on commercial shipping that have continued for more than seven months since the United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran.

The vessel, identified as the MT On Peace, was hit roughly nine nautical miles off Limah, a coastal town in Oman's Musandam governorate at the mouth of the strait, according to Oman's Ministry of Defence. The strike ignited a fire aboard the tanker, according to Al Jazeera's report on the incident, before the injured crew were brought ashore and treated at Khasab Hospital, also in Musandam. Ten crew members were evacuated in total. No group had claimed responsibility for the strike as of Wednesday.

A narrow waterway, a familiar pattern

Of the 19 crew members aboard, 17 were Indian nationals; 11 of the 12 people injured were Indian, according to Gulf News and Al Jazeera, both of which cited Omani and Indian officials. Neither outlet reported fatalities. India's Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement condemning the incident and renewing calls for an end to attacks on merchant shipping.

The strike is one of dozens recorded in the strait since the war began on February 28, 2026, when US and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and senior military officials, prompting Iranian missile and drone retaliation against Israel, US bases and, increasingly, commercial vessels transiting the waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil.

• At least 70 attacks on international shipping in and around the strait had been verified by the UN's International Maritime Organization as of late August, with 19 seafarers killed.
• As many as 400 vessels carrying about 6,000 seafarers were, at that point, unable to safely leave the Gulf.
• Shipping traffic through the strait has repeatedly fallen by more than 75 percent on days following reported attacks, according to maritime analytics firms, before partially recovering.

Seven months without resolution

The conflict has cycled through at least two ceasefires that collapsed under the weight of mutual accusations of violations. A truce brokered in April broke down on July 8, and subsequent talks, including a memorandum signed in June aimed at a 60-day extension, failed to produce a durable halt to hostilities. Washington has maintained a naval posture in the Gulf that it describes as enforcing a blockade on Iranian oil exports, while Tehran has asserted a right to control passage through waters it considers partly sovereign — a claim rejected by the IMO and most flag states.

The International Maritime Organization's secretary-general, Arsenio Dominguez, said in an August 28 statement marking six months of the crisis that "the situation in the Strait of Hormuz is unresolved" and that "thousands of seafarers in the region continue to live and work under conditions of heightened risk and uncertainty." Tuesday's attack on the On Peace suggests that risk has not eased in the six weeks since.

Seafarers carry a disproportionate burden

Indian nationals make up a large share of the global merchant marine workforce, and have been killed or injured in a majority of the documented attacks in the strait this year, including strikes on vessels named MT Al Bahiyah, MT Mombasa, MT Settebello and MT El Gaia, among others, in recent months. India's embassy in Muscat has repeatedly summoned foreign diplomats and issued statements of protest, while coordinating search-and-rescue efforts with Omani authorities.

"The continuing incidents of attacks on shipping in the region remain a cause of deep concern for India. We reiterate our call for an immediate cessation of such attacks in the interests of peace and stability in the region."

That statement, attributed to India's Ministry of External Affairs and reported by both Al Jazeera and Gulf News, echoes language the ministry has used after nearly every prior strike this year. Oman, which has no declared role in the conflict but whose coastline and ports have absorbed the brunt of the shipping disruption, has confined its public comments to confirming the evacuation and treatment of casualties.

No resolution in sight

Shipowners and insurers have continued to route vessels through the strait despite the risk, drawn by the lack of a viable alternative for Gulf oil and gas exports; a partial recovery in traffic was reported in September, when liquefied natural gas shipments reached their highest monthly volume since the war began. That recovery now appears fragile. The UK Maritime Trade Operations center, which monitors the waterway for the shipping industry, has continued to advise vessels to transit with heightened caution and report any sign of military activity, interference with navigation systems, or unidentified approaches.

Diplomatically, there is little indication of imminent progress. Reporting from the region this week described Washington as open in principle to renewed talks with Tehran even as both sides traded blame over other strikes elsewhere in the Gulf. The IMO has repeatedly called on member states and the shipping industry to coordinate a response but has no enforcement power of its own. Absent a durable ceasefire, officials and shipping analysts expect the pattern that produced Tuesday's attack on the On Peace — a commercial vessel with a largely South Asian crew caught in a dispute between much larger powers — to continue.