Day 162 brief — Iran says the Oman route is 'reached' but the strait stays shut; a Houthi strike injures 11 on Saudi soil as the coordinated-attack warning lands; Brent holds ~$82

Day 162 firmed the Hormuz route without opening the strait. Iran said it had 'reached' agreement with Oman on a temporary shipping corridor — a two-to-four-month route, much of it through Iranian waters, run by a joint coordination center — but both Tehran and Washington stressed it would not fully reopen the waterway, which Iran still ties to lifting the US naval blockade (Fortune, Washington Post, Bloomberg). The separate parliamentary bill that would bar US and Israeli ships and levy a 20% cargo penalty stayed in committee, and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, unseen since February, has still not signed. Trump said 'a lot of progress' had been made, teased an announcement 'soon,' and offered US help clearing the traffic backlog, even as Iran again denied direct talks and its parliament speaker dismissed the diplomacy as 'theater' (Bloomberg, CNBC). The market read the standoff, not the progress: Brent eased 0.4% to $82.15, holding above $82 after the week's rebound (Trading Economics). The sharpest turn came on the Gulf front the brief flagged Day 161 — the threatened coordinated assault began to land. A Houthi attack injured eleven civilians in southern Saudi Arabia, and the Houthis claimed a ballistic-missile strike on the Saudi tanker Wafa, its crew reported safe and the claim unconfirmed by Riyadh (The National, Yemen Monitor). The northern, Iraqi-militia axis has not yet fired. Per §3.5.3 the concrete progress is a firmer but partial, blockade-gated route; the concrete escalation is a Houthi salvo on Saudi soil. Direction holds mixed; seven-day and spillover risk hold critical; the thirty-day ceasefire probability holds at 13.