Israel’s Eilat Port has seen an 85 per cent drop in activity since Iran-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen stepped up attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, the port’s chief executive has said, Reuters reports.

Eilat, which primarily handles car imports and potash exports coming from the Red Sea, pales in size compared to Israel’s Mediterranean ports in Haifa and Ashdod which handle most of the country’s trade.

But Eilat, which sits adjacent to Jordan’s only coastal access point at Aqaba, offers Israel a gateway to the East without the need to navigate the Suez Canal.

Without Bab al-Mandab “you close the main shipping artery to Eilat Port. And therefore we lost 85pc of total activity”, CEO Gideon Golber told Reuters.

“We still have a small number of ships for exporting potash, but I believe that with a destination in the Far East, they will no longer travel in that direction. So that will also go down,” Golber said. “Unfortunately, if it continues we will reach a situation of zero ships in Eilat Port.”

The alternative route takes shipping around the southern tip of Africa, extending voyages to the Mediterranean by two to three weeks which will add extra costs down the line, Israeli officials say.