Iranian state media reported that Iran would allow Iraqi oil tankers to travel through the Strait of Hormuz, and Iraqi President Nizar Amedi said on Saturday that Iran had permitted vessels carrying Iraqi oil through the waterway in recent days. The number of ships granted passage was not disclosed. This is the first exception Tehran has made since the closure, and it follows directly from the Baghdad visit by parliament speaker Ghalibaf logged on Day 173, when Iraq’s own parliament speaker asked Iran to grant Iraqi exports special status. The mechanism matters: passage is being granted by Iranian permission, bilaterally, not under the Omani route framework or any American arrangement — which demonstrates precisely the control over the waterway that Washington denies Iran has.

[Fox] [CNN]

A CNN analysis of figures from the UK’s maritime agency put traffic through the strait at 20 percent of the pre-war average. Only four commodity ships sailed the waterway on Thursday, none of them large crude carriers or liquefied natural gas tankers, and the strait remains bottled up with thousands of seafarers stranded aboard hundreds of vessels. A workaround has emerged: aided by the US Navy, oil companies have chartered tankers that switch off their transponders to shuttle crude out of the Persian Gulf through the strait to the Gulf of Oman, where it is transferred to waiting ships. Trade is resuming by going dark rather than by agreement.

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A close ally of Iran’s supreme leader said Trump’s current rhetoric about the war stems from desperation and vowed that Iran "will not submit." The United States is preparing to escalate sanctions, with further details due Monday. Trump, meanwhile, said Iran could be bombed "a little bit more" even as his administration pivots to an economic crackdown rather than continued military action, and told reporters he is seeing what happens because Tehran would like a deal but is not ready to make the right one.

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Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the new US sanctions violate the sovereignty of other states and described Trump’s latest threat as a return to "full-scale classic colonialism." The framing is aimed less at Washington than at the third countries the sanctions campaign needs — the same audience China addressed on Day 175 when it said sanctions do not fit any party’s interest.

[Al Jazeera]

The US envoy said Israel did not give the United States advance notice before its strikes on the Syrian airbase logged on Day 172 — a material addition to the public rebuke recorded then, and an unusual admission of allied surprise. The IDF said it fired in southern Syria on Saturday at what it described as a militant preparing an imminent attack, and an Israeli drone strike on a civilian vehicle in southwest Syria caused injuries.

[Al Jazeera] [Fox] [Al Jazeera]

An Israeli drone struck a family residence in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, with reporting recording two killed and others injured across the day’s strikes. In the West Bank, settlers and soldiers targeted Palestinian homes in Area B at Qaryut, a Palestinian teenager was shot and killed prompting a UN response, and army and settler raids injured several people across the territory.

[Al Jazeera] [Al Jazeera] [Al Jazeera]

Tracker status holds at WAR RESUMED. Day 176 contains the first concession of the closure, and it runs in Tehran’s favour: Iraqi oil moves because Iran permitted it, bilaterally, on the strength of a neighbour’s request rather than an American demand. Everything else held — traffic at a fifth of normal, four ships in a day, hundreds of vessels waiting, and both capitals preparing for Monday’s sanctions announcement. US strikes on Iran remain paused since August 1, twenty-two days.