Tehran said US compensation was required before the Strait of Hormuz could reopen. Trump answered by applying a new condition of his own, saying he would require compensation from Iran for past misdeeds. The result is a mirrored demand that neither side can concede without conceding the war’s central argument about who is responsible for it. Coverage of the exchange was unambiguous: the two sides ended the day no closer to an agreement, and the fresh requirements diminished the prospect of a quick deal despite last week’s optimism.

[CNN]

Iran restated the position it has held since the framework emerged: an agreement with Oman to manage the waterway would not be enough to reopen it unless Washington meets the full list of conditions issued by the Supreme National Security Council on Day 162. The Omani track and the reopening are being kept deliberately separate by Tehran — the first is a technical arrangement about lanes, the second is a political concession that has now acquired a price tag.

[CNN]

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a flurry of decrees reshaping the country’s military leadership, announcing six senior appointments: Ali Abdollahi as armed forces chief of staff, Ahmad Vahidi as commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ali Azmaei as IRGC Navy commander, and former intelligence chief Hossein Taeb to a senior post. The naval appointment matters most for this tracker: the IRGC Navy is the force executing the strait closure. Abdollahi is the same commander who warned on Day 155 that states cooperating with Washington would burn in the fires of war. Khamenei himself has not been seen in public since becoming leader after his father was killed in the late-February strike.

[CNN]

The bulk carrier Minoan Pioneer was struck in the Strait of Hormuz, with one casualty logged — another merchant crew paying for a dispute over transit rights. A UAE-flagged commercial vessel was hit in the Persian Gulf, the third Emirati ship in three days after the ADNOC tanker on Day 162. Houthi missile and drone attacks continued against the Yemeni Red Sea port of al-Makha, following the strikes that killed seven there on Day 163.

[Guardian] [Al Jazeera] [Al Jazeera]

Israeli forces demolished residential homes in southern Lebanon, with residents watching the destruction of properties in the border zone. In Gaza, Israeli forces killed one person and another body was recovered from rubble, while wider reporting logged 18 casualties in strikes on the city and commentary described the US-brokered peace plan as failing on the ground in Jerusalem. Logged as secondary theater.

[Al Jazeera] [Al Jazeera] [Guardian]

Two entries in this tracker’s ingestion require qualification. An item logging an air strike on southern Iranian military and infrastructure sites at Qeshm Island traces to a retrospective New York Times piece on the bombing of southern Iran rather than to a new attack; no wire coverage of August 10 reports a resumption of US strikes inside Iran, and the pause that began on August 1 appears to hold. Separately, the al-Makha port attacks were ingested with conflicting casualty figures of 7 and 24 across windows; this tracker carries the seven deaths reported by the Yemeni military spokesman and treats the higher figure as unconfirmed.

[NYT]

Tracker status holds at WAR RESUMED. Day 164 moves the diplomacy backwards for the first time since the Day 156 climbdown: the parties have added reciprocal reparations demands to a negotiation that had not yet resolved control of the lanes or the fees charged in them. Iran meanwhile consolidated its military command, including the naval force enforcing the closure, under a leader who has never appeared in public. US strikes remain paused, the strait remains shut, and ships and their crews continue to be hit in it.