Jordan’s air defenses intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles entering the the country’s airspace from Iran early on Wednesday, the Jordanian military said.
No deaths, injuries or material damage were reported.
The military said engineering teams secured several sites where debris fell and reaffirmed that it would respond to any violation or threat to Jordanian airspace under its rules of engagement.
Donald Trump's short-lived proposal to charge cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz has handed Tehran an unexpected argument: that Washington itself briefly accepted the principle that securing the strategic waterway could justify collecting fees.
Trump abandoned the proposal within hours after discussions with regional leaders. But before doing so, Iranian officials and commentators seized on it as implicit validation of a position Tehran has long advanced.
The debate began after Trump announced on Truth Social that the United States would collect a 20% charge on all cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz to cover the costs of securing one of the world's most volatile maritime corridors.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded in English, arguing that the country responsible for ensuring safe passage through the strait is entitled to compensation.
"Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service," he wrote. "Twenty percent is, of course, too much. We will be fair."
Tehran claims vindication
Hardline commentator Ehsan Hosseini argued that Trump's proposal undermined critics inside Iran who had insisted charging ships would violate international law.
"Trump says he will charge a 20% fee for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz — roughly $15 per barrel of oil. Yet there are people in Iran's Foreign Ministry who insist that charging transit fees violates international law," he wrote.
Mostafa Faghihi, editor of the centrist Entekhab website, reached a similar conclusion, arguing that Trump had effectively legitimized Iran's longstanding position by presenting the charge as a security fee. He predicted many countries would nevertheless resist such a policy, potentially undermining Washington's own strategic interests.
Reformist journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi offered a different interpretation.
"I doubt Trump seriously intends to implement it," he wrote on Telegram. "More likely, he wants to encourage other countries to join the United States in confronting Iran in the Persian Gulf."
Zeidabadi also suggested Trump may have been attempting to undermine Iran's own proposal by making governments more wary of transit charges generally and linking any US withdrawal of the idea to a similar concession by Tehran.
Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, meanwhile, avoided commenting directly on the proposed fee but rejected the broader premise that Washington could organize maritime traffic through Hormuz.
It warned that any attempt by US forces to direct shipping outside routes designated by Tehran and without coordination with Iran's armed forces would face "strong resistance."
Iranian media presented the statement as a forceful response to Trump's announcement.
International pushback
The United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil rejected the proposal, arguing that international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz should remain free from transit charges.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) also dismissed the proposal, saying it had no legal basis under international law.
"We have always been consistent on our stance on fees—IMO stands firmly against charging fees for passage through straits used for international navigation," an IMO spokesperson said.
Online reactions reflected the same divide.
Some critics of the Iranian government argued that Trump's proposal differed fundamentally from Tehran's because Washington described it as payment for escort and security services rather than a transit toll.
One user wrote: "This isn't a toll. It's an escort fee for ships because of the insecurity we created ourselves. We've handed Trump exactly the justification he needed by repeatedly using the Strait of Hormuz as a negotiating tool."
Trump's proposal survived for only a few hours. But its political afterlife may prove longer.
By arguing that the power securing Hormuz was entitled to compensation, Trump handed Tehran a rhetorical opening to defend its own claims—even though neither country has convinced the world that one of its most important waterways can be treated as a source of unilateral revenue.
President Donald Trump held a Situation Room meeting on Tuesday to discuss a potential broader offensive against Iran that would expand beyond current US strikes around the Strait of Hormuz, three sources familiar with the matter told Axios.
The sources said Trump appeared open to escalating military action in an effort to pressure Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and accept his demands on its nuclear program.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Tuesday its Aerospace Force struck the US military base at Azraq in Jordan, adding “it destroyed shelters for F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighter jets as well as several MQ-9 drones.'“
In a statement carried by IRGC-affiliated media, IRGC said the attack was carried out during the sixth wave of its “Nasr 2” operation in response to US strikes against Iran.
The statement called on people of Jordan to oppose the presence of US forces in the country and urged them to “seek the removal of American military forces from Jordan.”
US Central Command said on Tuesday American forces completed an additional round of strikes against Iran, hitting dozens of military targets near the Strait of Hormuz and along Iranian coastal areas.
“US Central Command (CENTCOM) completed an additional round of strikes against Iran at 10 p.m. ET, July 14, hitting dozens of military targets near the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian coastal areas,” CENTCOM posted on X.
“US fighter aircraft, drones, and naval vessels launched precision munitions against Iranian missile and drone sites, naval capabilities, and coastal defense systems during the seven-hour wave to further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping and civilian crews,” it said, accompanying the statement with a video of the attacks.
An Iranian plane landing in Houthi-controlled Yemen looked like an oddly minor victory for Tehran. But it may have been the opening move in an effort to rebuild the allied force capable of threatening a second global maritime chokepoint alongside the Strait of Hormuz.
As the US-Iran memorandum of understanding unravels and the confrontation shifts toward the Strait of Hormuz, renewed fighting in Yemen is raising a broader question: is Tehran preparing another source of maritime pressure at Bab al-Mandab?
Hezbollah and Hamas have been severely weakened by Israeli military operations. The Houthis, by contrast, remain armed, entrenched and positioned astride one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Even a credible threat to Bab al-Mandab could unsettle shipping, energy markets and global supply chains. For Iran, that threat alone may be valuable.
The fight over one airplane
The latest escalation followed Yemen's decision to block an Iranian aircraft carrying a Houthi delegation returning from the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran. Yemen's internationally recognized government accused Iran of attempting to enter its airspace without authorization.
The dispute quickly escalated. An attack damaged Sanaa International Airport's runway. The Houthis blamed Riyadh before targeting Saudi Arabia's Abha International Airport with missiles and drones.
Senior Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti later warned of what he described as a "siege" of the Kingdom and openly identified Bab al-Mandab as a strategic pressure point.
"The key thing here was the precedent," Chatham House fellow Thomas Juneau told Iran International. "Iran and the Houthis are trying to force open the air bridge between Tehran and Sanaa."
Iran has long supplied the Houthis through maritime smuggling routes stretching around Oman and the Horn of Africa. Those routes are slow, costly and vulnerable to interdiction.
A direct air bridge would dramatically improve Tehran's ability to move sensitive military components into Houthi-controlled territory. That is why one apparently ordinary passenger flight mattered.
Rebuilding the Houthis
Farzin Nadimi, a defense and security analyst at the Washington Institute, believes Iran's urgency reflects another problem: after years of Red Sea operations and repeated US and Israeli strikes, the Houthis are running low on some of their more advanced military capabilities.
"They are very much eager to help the Houthis rebuild their strategic inventory in order to be a viable player again," he said.
Nadimi suspects the aircraft may have been carrying critical weapons components, although there is no independent confirmation of its cargo.
Modern missile and drone forces depend less on complete weapons than on a steady flow of electronics, guidance systems, engines and other specialized components.
If the Houthis are running low, a direct air link would offer Tehran a faster and more reliable route to replenish those capabilities.
A second chokepoint
The strategic importance extends well beyond Yemen.
The dispute between Tehran and Washington is already centered on the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has demonstrated the leverage that can be created by threatening one of the world's most important energy corridors.
A revitalized Houthi force capable of disrupting Bab al-Mandab would force Washington, Saudi Arabia and their regional partners to consider the security of two strategic waterways simultaneously.
"Iran, having demonstrated the extraordinary value for itself of closing the Strait of Hormuz, absolutely understands that if it closes both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab at the same time, the effect would be magnified," Juneau said.
"The effect on the global economy, the ability to pressure the US, to pressure Saudi Arabia and to pressure all of their allies."
Juneau cautioned that neither Tehran nor the Houthis appear poised to close Bab al-Mandab in the near term. But the ability to credibly threaten it would give Iran another source of strategic leverage.
Yemeni-American researcher and author Fatima Abo Alasrar believes the latest confrontation was deliberately engineered by Tehran.
"I think, honestly, Iran has engineered this escalation," she said.
In her view, widening the potential cost of confrontation creates another avenue through which Tehran can shape future negotiations with Washington.
Saudi Arabia's red line
The confrontation also threatens to upset the fragile balance that has prevailed in Yemen since the 2022 truce.
Saudi Arabia has spent years trying to extricate itself from a costly war that increasingly looked unwinnable.
"It's really Saudi Arabia that's been absorbing a lot of the pain here," Juneau said.
The Houthis understood Riyadh's reluctance to return to full-scale conflict and repeatedly tested how far they could push.
The attempt to establish a direct air bridge between Tehran and Sanaa appears to have crossed a different threshold.
Saudi Arabia may still prefer de-escalation. But allowing Iran an easier route to replenish Houthi military capabilities would strengthen an armed group positioned directly on its southern border and potentially restore its ability to threaten Saudi cities, airports and energy infrastructure.
Alasrar described Saudi Arabia and the Houthis as pieces on a much larger geopolitical chessboard.
"Houthis and Saudis are almost like pieces on a chessboard that are fighting with each other right now," she said. "But it's Iran and the US that get to impose everything."
Whether the Houthis intend to launch a renewed campaign around Bab al-Mandab remains uncertain. Juneau cautions they are not simply Iranian proxies waiting for orders, while Nadimi expects de-escalation unless the wider US-Iran confrontation expands significantly.
Hormuz has already demonstrated the leverage created by maritime chokepoints. Iran may not even need the Houthis to close Bab al-Mandab. If it succeeds in rebuilding their capabilities, simply making the threat credible could become a source of strategic pressure in its own right.