MoD forced to deny claims British warship was hit by Hezbollah missile after speculation runs wild

James Saunders
Mon, 06 Apr 2026 04:02:41 +0000

The Ministry of Defence was forced to deny claims a British warship was hit by a Hezbollah missile last night after speculation exploded on social media.

On Sunday, outlets like the Iranian Tasnim news agency claimed the terrorist group "struck and destroyed an Israeli warship" off the coast of Lebanon.

Hezbollah said the ship was 68 nautical miles from the Lebanese coast and was "preparing to carry out attacks" on the country.

It added that its "strike" was executed using a naval cruise missile - and claimed it had secured a "direct hit".

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Other claims then emerged that the ship was British, and Hezbollah had mistaken it for an Israeli vessel.

Israel's Channel 14 News said the group had "fired a shore-to-sea missile at a British warship after mistaking it for Israeli", with a local assessment claiming "damage was caused".

Onlookers began pointing to HMS Dragon, a Royal Navy type-45 destroyer, which was sent to the eastern Mediterranean to strengthen the two RAF bases on Cyprus.

Others claimed the RFA Lyme Bay had been struck - though that vessel is in dry dock in Gibraltar.

A Ministry of Defence source later flat-out denied Dragon had been hit.

Further analysis, meanwhile, confirmed that there were no other UK-flagged vessels, both naval or otherwise, in the area at the time.

The UKMTO, which monitors attacks on British-flagged ships in the area, also confirmed it had not received any such reports, according to The Telegraph.

HMS Dragon is among a number of British assets in the Middle East, which have been brought in to provide defence for UK bases in Cyprus and Iraq, as well as allied nations, from Iranian drones and other weapons.

The RAF Regiment has shot down seveeral Iranian drones so far, according to the MoD.

UK Typhoons and F-35 jets, supported by Voyager and Royal Navy Merlin and Wildcat helicopters, have meanwhile continued defensive missions over the eastern Mediterranean, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

By Monday morning, there was some unconfirmed speculation that the ship may have been a French Horizon-class vessel, which looks like the Type 45 destroyer.

France is sending eight frigates and two amphibious assault ships to the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea to join its aircraft carrier FS Charles De Gaulle.

Alongside Britain and France, Greece, Italy and Pakistan have announced new deployments in response to the war in Iran.

The major French deployment came after a drone - again, from Lebanon - hit a hangar housing American U-2 spy planes at RAF Akrotiri in early March.

There were no casualties and thorough assessments determine that the damage is minimal, the MoD said after photos of the damage emerged.

"There has been no damage to equipment inside the hangar," a spokesman added.

A fleet of U-2 Dragon Ladies are permanently based at Akrotiri as part of a decades-long spy mission codenamed Olive Harvest.