India’s navy said Friday it had rescued 21 crew members from a vessel in the Arabian Sea after a hijacking distress call, the latest attack on commercial shipping in the region.

Last month the force deployed several warships into the sea to “maintain a deterrent presence” after a string of recent shipping attacks, including a drone strike near India’s coast which the United States has blamed on Iran.

It comes at a time when many vessels have been rerouted from the Red Sea due to drone and missile attacks carried out by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is battling the Hamas terror group.

Regardless of which flag ships sail under or the nationality of their owners or operators, Israel-bound vessels “will become a legitimate target for our armed forces,” the Houthis have said.

India is not part of a US-led Red Sea task force formed last month to thwart attacks there by the Houthis.

A navy statement said Friday that all 21 crew members, including 15 Indian nationals, aboard the MV Lila Norfolk, had been evacuated from the ship’s citadel — a fortified section of commercial vessels used as a refuge during pirate attacks.

The 84,000-tonne bulk carrier had been boarded by five or six “unknown armed personnel” on Thursday evening but the attempted hijacking was “probably abandoned” after a forceful warning by the Indian Navy, the statement said.

It added that the warship INS Chennai, which had intercepted the vessel earlier Friday, was working to restore power and propulsion to allow the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier to continue to its next port of call.

The navy did not give a precise location of the vessel, which was last pinged by online marine traffic monitors off the coast of East Africa six days earlier.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault.

Steve Kunzer, chief executive of the vessel’s Dubai-based owners Lila Global, thanked the Indian navy for the rescue.

“We also want to thank the professionalism of our crew who reacted safely and responsibly under the circumstances,” he said in a statement.

The Indian navy said it “remains committed to ensuring safety of merchant shipping in the region along with international partners and friendly foreign countries.”

Last month a drone attack hit the MV Chem Pluto tanker 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) off the coast of India.

Iran’s foreign ministry rejected accusations of responsibility for that attack by Washington as “worthless.”

It was the first time Washington had openly accused Iran of directly targeting ships since the start of Israel’s war on Hamas, which is backed by Tehran.

War broke out following the Hamas terror group’s October 7 massacres, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people and seizing over 240 hostages, mostly civilians.

In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a wide-scale military campaign in Gaza aimed at destroying the group’s military and governance capabilities.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Thursday at least 22,600 people have been killed in the Strip since the war erupted on October 7. The Hamas figure does not differentiate between civilians and combatants and includes Palestinians killed by errant rocket fire from Gaza. Israel says it has killed 8,500 terrorists since launching the war.

Yemeni rebel attacks have prompted major firms to reroute their cargo vessels around the southern tip of Africa, a much longer voyage with higher fuel costs.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.