Germany

Berlin, September 19, 2026. For the German press, Saturday's air alert over Riyadh confirms a feared scenario that has been looming for weeks: the blockade of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung calls "the gate of tears", is no longer a distant threat but a fact that directly affects the German economy. Handelsblatt recalls that diesel has reached its highest price ever recorded in Germany, while Brent and WTI, after a two-day rally, fell by 1.5% and 2% on Wednesday, as markets were reassured by reports that Riyadh is offering additional crude oil cargoes to Asian refineries via transshipments off the Omani port of Sohar. According to the same newspaper, Beijing has called for "the opening of the Strait of Hormuz" and for moderation from Iran and the United States.

In the face of the lack of a common European decision, Italy has chosen the unilateral path: Defense Minister Guido Crosetto announced that the Italian navy would protect the passage of its ships, stating that it has "the necessary capabilities to secure transit", reports the FAZ. An editorial in the same newspaper judges that "the time of strategic myopia" is over and calls for a broad common front, backed by American military power, to contain the Houthi rebels, who are now linked, according to the text, to Iraqi militias close to Iran and to al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Deutsche Welle also documents the fragility of available information: its fact-checking team has identified a viral nine-second video, viewed over 340,000 times, which was wrongly presented as showing Houthi strikes on Abha, when in fact it is an old, AI-generated video. The channel also notes that Egypt is under increasing pressure on the Suez Canal: traffic in the strait has fallen to 21 ships per day at the beginning of September, compared to an average of 47 in mid-July, even though the Houthi spokesman claims to be allowing all ships to pass except those targeting Saudi Arabia.