It is not a direct attack.

When you've got bombs dropping on your head, it doesn't matter whether the US is doing it via their own Navy or six layers of proxies. The explosion still hurts the same, regardless.

if you define friendly countries as part of the war then you have defacto declared war on them

Absolutely. Which is why Israel declaring total war on Gaza was such a monumental misstep. You've got Palestinians in Jordan, Persians in Iran, Arabs in Iraq and Egypt and Lebanon and Syria, and now Houthis in Yemen all fighting mad.

The Red Sea is shut down entirely because the war in Gaza was recognized is increasingly seen as a war by Israel against all Muslims.

Europe and North America aren’t going to just give up the suez canal. The Yemeni coast facing the straight is going to turn into an international occupied zone.

Given how much trouble US and British troops have had moving in and around Somalia, how disastrously the war in Afghanistan and Iraq ended, and how inhospitable to modern western military hardware the Yemeni mountains have proven to be, I think the question is not whether EU/NA will give up the Suez but whether they can hang on to it.

the only people who will even remember it’s an occupied zone are the same people who know there’s a UN mission in Sinai to keep the Suez Canal from being shut down by war again

You're only furthering my point. Americans and Europeans have completely neglected how fragile the region is, simply because of this period of relative stability. Given that the UN is fracturing in the face of Old West nations feuding with BRICS states, their ability to maintain control over the peninsula is eroding in turn.

And, again, it should be noted how crazy profitable this turn of events has been for South Africa. 90% of shipping traffic formerly passing through the Suez is now passing around the Horn. That's brought a much-needed injection of cash and cargo into the region.

Similarly, the nascent BRI is seeing a flood of new commerce, as overland travel gains appeal relative to the hazardous Red Sea route.

From the standpoint of the BRICS states, this has been a windfall. They aren't under any economic pressure to tag in with EU/NA on Yemen. If anything, it appears that the South Africans are leading a diplomatic charge in their defense.