WASHINGTON — The United States has launched a new military operation to ensure commercial shipping vessels can safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, deploying scores of warships, fighter jets and drones to counter Iranian efforts that have threatened the narrow waterway that carries a fifth of the world’s oil.

At a news conference Tuesday at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the new initiative — dubbed “Project Freedom” — is a temporary and defensive operation meant to resume the flow of traffic through the international waterway as hostilities have continued in the region.

“We are not looking for a fight, but Iran cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway,” Hegseth said, while calling Iran’s tactics “international extortion.”

The operation comes nearly a month after the United States reached a fragile ceasefire deal with Iran, a truce that Hegseth said remains in effect even though Tehran has continued to attack U.S. forces and commercial vessels.

“The ceasefire is not over,” Hegseth said.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that since the ceasefire took effect, Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times, seized two container ships and attacked U.S. forces more than 10 times. All of these instances, he said, are “below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point.”

Those attacks have left more than 1,550 vessels trapped in the Arabian Gulf, unable to transit, disrupting global trade and pushing energy markets toward crisis, with fuel prices climbing and shipping costs surging.

The new U.S. mission was cast as separate from the broader military campaign over Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As negotiations to denuclearize Iran continue, Caine said commercial vessels wanting to cross the strait will now “see, hear and frankly feel the U.S. combat power around them, on the sea, in the skies and on the radio.”

Two U.S. commercial vessels, escorted by Navy destroyers, have already moved through the Strait, Hegseth said.

“We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact,” Hegseth said. “They said they control the strait, they do not.”

Hegseth called the operation a “direct gift from the United States to the world,” aimed at resuming traffic through one of the world’s most vital waterways.

“To what remains of Iran’s forces: if you attack American troops or innocent commercial shipping, you will face overwhelming and devastating American firepower,” Hegseth said. “The president has been very clear about this.”

On Tuesday evening local time, the UAE’s defense ministry said in a statement on X that the country’s defensive systems “are actively engaging with missiles and UAV threats and that “sounds heard across the across the country are the result of ongoing engaging operations.”

Tuesday’s barrage marks the second consecutive day of attacks targeting the UAE since the U.S.-Iran ceasefire took hold on April 8. On Monday, the UAE said it engaged a total of 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones launched from Iran.

For its part, Iran said it had no “pre-planned program” to attack the UAE’s oil facilities, but that attacks were prompted by the United States’ plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to an unnamed military official quoted by Iranian State TV.

“What happened was the product of the U.S. military’s adventurism to create a passage for ships to illegally pass through” the Strait, the official said, adding the U.S. military “must be held accountable for it.”

Ceballos reported from Washington, Bulos from Beirut.

A coalition of civil rights groups filed a new lawsuit on Monday seeking to halt parts of a Texas law that would allow police officers in the Lone Star State to arrest migrants suspected of crossing into the U.S. across the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

The law is set to take effect next week after a federal appeals court vacated a lower court ruling last week that had prevented its enforcement since 2024. In that ruling, he appeals court vacated an injunction that had blocked the law, finding that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.

Senate Bill 4 established a state-level crime for entering the country illegally and authorized state magistrates to order certain individuals to leave the country if they are convicted.

Courts have long maintained that immigration enforcement has historically been treated as the responsibility of the federal government, but Texas Republicans attempted to challenge that precedent when they approved S.B. 4.

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The Texas Civil Rights Project, American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Texas argued that the law is unconstitutional, noting that immigration law is exclusively the responsibility of the federal government and that federal law should preempt the state law.

The groups are attempting to block four provisions of S.B. 4 — the creation of a crime for re-entering the country illegally, even if a person has since obtained legal status such as a green card; granting state magistrates authority to issue deportation orders; the creation of a crime for failing to comply with a magistrate’s deportation orders; and the requirement that magistrates continue a prosecution even if a person has a pending immigration case under federal law, such as an asylum claim.

“Our fight against S.B. 4 isn’t over until justice wins,” Kate Gibson Kumar, an attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a statement. “S.B. 4 is not only unconstitutional, but a vile law that uses our Texas resources to harm communities across our state. The Texas Civil Rights Project will keep fighting to protect Texas communities from the wrath of S.B. 4.”

Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, argued that S.B. 4 is “cruel and illegal,” adding that the groups “will keep fighting it until it is permanently struck down.”

“Every court to have reached the merits of laws like S.B. 4 has found them to be unconstitutional,” he said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

The law is scheduled to go into effect on May 15 unless another court takes action.

“S.B. 4 would transform our police and judges into immigration agents — threatening neighbors who have families here, who have lived here for years, even those who have legal status,” said Adriana Piñon, legal director at the ACLU of Texas. “Immigration enforcement is exclusively the federal government’s arena, and no state has ever claimed the power Texas threatens to wield here. We are taking this back to court to defend our Texas communities.”

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Monday’s lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the Texas law, which was passed by state lawmakers amid an uptick in migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration.

Another lawsuit had been led by some of the same advocacy groups that filed Monday’s challenge. The Biden administration also initially sought to halt the law in 2024 before the Trump administration terminated the Department of Justice’s involvement in the lawsuit last year as part of the president’s mass deportation agenda.