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The strait is being rationed by flag, not shut. Windward, a shipping analytics firm, reported a dip in traffic through Bab al-Mandab from 35 daily transits before the Houthi advance to 25 after, with traffic already recovered to 45 transits on Sunday, AP reports in its week-one explainer; the Houthis captured Mokha before taking several islands near the strait, through which some 12 percent of world trade passes in peacetime, and now sit 32 kilometres from Djibouti. "At the moment, their focus is on Saudi-linked shipping," ACLED's Valentin d'Hauthuille told AP, but they might "extend the criteria according to which vessels are assessed to be 'Saudi-linked' to increase pressure on both Saudi and the global economy." The Houthi demand is stated in the Houthis' own terms: "It is Saudi Arabia that closed the Bab el-Mandeb strait to shipping traffic to and from Yemen and imposed an unjust blockade on the country," political bureau member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said. The US, which bombed the Houthis under Biden and Trump, "has shown no interest in getting involved this time around, and the Houthis appear keen to keep it that way," AP writes; Oman hosted a US-Houthi meeting last weekend, and the Turkish and Pakistani officials AP spoke to said they had not received a Saudi request under the Mecca pact, which Islamabad's "some deployments" on Thursday reframed rather than contradicted.

The ground war has moved east to the oil. There has been heavy fighting in and around Marib, the central city in the oil-rich province of the same name that also serves as a military hub for Saudi-backed forces, AP reports; previous Houthi offensives failed to take it, the rebels also threaten Taiz, and the New York Times headlined a Houthi advance on Marib on Thursday, an item fetched as headline only. The forces standing in the way are "Yemen's Saudi-backed government and an array of forces that have fought one another as recently as January." The cost is counted by three parties who agree on none of the numbers: OCHA says the latest fighting has killed eight civilians and wounded 32 and that 125,000 have fled; the IOM says 112,000 displaced inside Yemen in two weeks; the Yemeni government's Health Ministry says the Houthis have killed around 150 civilians since September 3, a belligerent's figure. Only 20 percent of OCHA's Yemen appeal is funded, and the Houthis' detention of UN and aid workers has hampered assistance in territory they control. KSrelief distributed shelter aid to displaced families in Yemen and 281 food baskets in Hadhramaut on Saturday morning, per SPA, which is the Kingdom's answer on the record to a displacement its air force is helping to cause off it.

The army has now said what the diplomats would not. Pakistan's military will go "to any extent" to defend Saudi Arabia against attacks, ISPR director general Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told Arab News on Thursday, per bdnews24's carry of the interview: "Pakistan fully stands with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, both diplomatically and physically," a commitment that "also covers the protection of Islam's two holiest sites in Makkah and Madinah," and rests on "an emotive, deep-rooted, historical and unbreakable bond" between the two countries' peoples, militaries and political leaderships. Arab News itself frames the remarks as "stronger than Islamabad's public position last week, when the Foreign Office said no Pakistani military response was under discussion under the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement," a pact under which Islamabad said it would act "when the time comes." Arab News reports that Islamabad has sought to mediate the US-Iran war while conveying a Saudi warning to Tehran to use its influence to stop Houthi attacks on the Kingdom; Chaudhry said Islamabad is consulting regional governments toward "a negotiated and peaceful outcome," and offered no timetable for Washington and Tehran returning to talks, citing "spoilers" and "detractors." Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, speaking to Geo News, said the time has come to activate the Mecca pact and that Pakistan would defend the holy cities even without it: "Makkah Agreement applies to us, and we will fulfil our duty," per Middle East Eye via bdnews24. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree's denial is carried in the same report: "Our operations target [Saudi] oil facilities and military bases, which are far removed from the sacred sites."

Riyadh answered in the currency Islamabad values. The Saudi Foreign Ministry on Friday expressed "strong condemnation and denunciation of the terrorist attack that targeted a mosque" in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and offered condolences to Pakistan, per SPA dated September 18. The exchange is the bilateral treaty working as designed, each state naming the other's enemy on the day it strikes. What none of the four Pakistani statements contains is a noun: no unit, no aircraft, no air-defence system, no base, no date. Whether ISPR or SPA names one, whether Riyadh has filed a formal request under the Mecca agreement, and whether Araghchi's readout of his Thursday call with Field Marshal Munir mentioned Yemen, all remain not established. Ankara's position after AP's "no request received" is also not established for a second day.

The French call resolves an observable and opens another. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received a phone call from President Emmanuel Macron in Jeddah on Wednesday, SPA reported; "they reviewed regional developments and discussed efforts to enhance security and stability in the region, as well as measures to ensure the security and freedom of maritime navigation," and "several topics of mutual interest." The readout is the first named contact between Riyadh and Paris since AP's Wednesday report that France was among the capitals asked about air defence, and it contains no deployment; whether the Elysee's version names one is not established. Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Safadi called Prince Faisal bin Farhan on Thursday and "reiterated Jordan's condemnation of all attacks targeting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and affirmed Jordan's absolute solidarity with Saudi Arabia in all steps it takes to protect its security, stability, and the safety of its citizens and residents," per Petra; the two discussed "efforts aimed at ending the escalation in the region and restoring calm." That is the readout Thursday's Watch list asked for, and it says what Amman can afford: everything short of a name.

The Israeli reaction arrived as an invoice. The United States informed the Prime Minister's Office that it intends to sell F-35s to Saudi Arabia in what Walla's source described as a $25 billion deal, an Israeli official confirmed on Friday, per the Jerusalem Post; Israel "is expected to seek 'compensation' from Washington in the form of weapons systems that the US has so far declined to sell to Israel," and a source familiar with the details said the IDF "would prefer that no other country in the Middle East receive the stealth fighter," while stressing that Saudi Arabia would get its first aircraft only in five years even if the deal is signed soon. The figure is Walla's rounding; the State Department's estimate, per Reuters on Thursday, is $24.3 billion. The formal DSCA notification text, an Israeli-edge certification, and any joint resolution of disapproval against the sale remain not established for a second day. Iraq, from whose territory the pipeline drones were launched by Arab News's account, said on Friday it had returned that airspace to civilian authorities after a decade of military restriction, per Reuters via the Jerusalem Post; whether that changes any Iraqi accounting of the pipeline attackers is not established.

The bypass now has a volume and a customer list. Saudi Arabia has sold about 60 million barrels of crude from Ras Tanura, inside the Strait of Hormuz, for loading via ship-to-ship transfer at the Omani port of Sohar this month and next, multiple trade sources told Reuters on Friday; the rebound in Aramco's exports from inside the Gulf to 1 million to 1.5 million barrels a day on average, "similar to or slightly higher than August's levels," has cooled prices because it could make up for some of the volume lost at Yanbu. Chinese and South Korean refiners are among the top buyers of the spot supplies, with some volumes going to India and Japan; Aramco did not respond. The cost of the route is in the freight: a VLCC to load 2 million barrels in early October from Fujairah to Asia hit a Worldscale rate of 800, per a shipbroking firm, a record for the week. The Petroleum Association of Japan said on Friday its refiners have secured sufficient crude through November; "in some cases, oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz at Saudi Arabia's risk before being transferred to us outside the Gulf," PAJ president Shunichi Kito said in Tokyo, "for that reason, supplies from Saudi Arabia have not ceased entirely." The phrase "at Saudi Arabia's risk" is the contract term that matters: title passes at Sohar, and the strait is Aramco's problem.

Europe is the customer being rationed. Aramco has told at least two European refining customers they will receive no crude next month following the pipeline attack, Bloomberg reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter; European refiners typically buy Saudi crude under term contracts that guarantee monthly supplies, and Aramco has informed them that October's deliveries will not proceed, per Reuters' carry of the report, which Reuters could not verify and Aramco did not answer outside office hours. Poland's Orlen has already bought North Sea grades to replace lost Saudi imports. Bloomberg's source also gave the first stated repair schedule: partial restart within days and full capacity within six weeks. Brent settled at $104.87, down 95 cents or 0.93 percent, and WTI at $100.30, down $1.61, on the day Reuters attributed to China's request to Iran; Reuters' Friday piece also carries the four-vessel Hormuz count against a 10-day average of about 16. The product squeeze has not eased: US retail diesel is $6.45 a gallon per AAA, a record, gasoline $4.47 at a time of year it usually falls, IIR expects US refining capacity in production to fall by 371,000 barrels a day next week, and "right now it's not a supply problem; it's a refining problem," Price Futures Group's Phil Flynn said. JPMorgan said on Thursday it has no clear baseline view for oil for the first time since the war began in February. "If we see a sustained improvement in Hormuz traffic, some of the geopolitical premium can unwind further," Phillip Nova's Priyanka Sachdeva said. Kpler's Ras Tanura VLCC count, the length of the Yanbu delay, the JMIC 72-hour count and the OPEC monthly report were not fetched and are not established.

The first consumer print of the war week is a calendar effect with a war inside it. Saudi Arabia's point-of-sale transactions totalled SR13.79 billion, about $3.68 billion, in the week ended September 12, down 12.9 percent from the previous week, while the number of transactions fell 4.8 percent to 254.91 million, according to SAMA data reported by Arab News. The decline was led by education, down 58.2 percent to SR316.15 million with transaction counts down 22.9 percent, the steepest fall among the activities tracked, and books and stationery, down 23.9 percent to SR138.93 million. Food and beverages fell 15.1 percent to SR2.28 billion, restaurants and cafes 6.7 percent to SR1.69 billion, apparel 14.1 percent to SR1.10 billion, transportation 12.7 percent to SR1.01 billion, gas stations 4.3 percent to SR1.05 billion, healthcare 4.8 percent to SR918.33 million and professional services 9.6 percent to SR818.97 million; furniture and home supplies was among the few categories to rise, up 0.8 percent to SR452.37 million. "The previous weeks were supported by strong back-to-school spending, particularly on education, books and stationery, while the return of consumers from their annual vacations may also have affected spending patterns," economist Talat Hafiz told Arab News, calling the drop "normalization" and predicting "some normal volatility in the coming weeks" before patterns stabilise.

The geography is the reading this desk cares about. Riyadh spent SR4.87 billion, down 12 percent, with 84.81 million transactions; Jeddah SR1.89 billion, down 11.9 percent; Dammam SR689.96 million, down 9.5 percent; Makkah SR535.60 million, down 12.8 percent; Madinah SR519.35 million, down 12.3 percent; Alkhobar SR384.69 million, down 9.9 percent; Buraidah SR349.39 million; and Abha SR167.19 million, the sharpest citywide decline at 16.1 percent. Abha, in the southern region of Aseer on the Yemeni border, is the large city nearest the Houthi front, and Makkah and Madinah are the cities the Houthis were accused of targeting in the week after this data closed; Abha's 16.1 percent is four points worse than the capital and the only clearly anomalous number in the table, while the two holy cities sit within a point of Riyadh. Gas station spending fell less than any other large category, which is consistent with a country driving normally. The Thursday and Sunday TASI closes, three-month SIBOR after the repo move, the September sukuk yield and any rating-agency comment on the shutdown were not fetched and are not established.

The deal is being tested before it starts. The UK's free trade agreement with the GCC, agreed in May, is expected to add £3.7 billion a year to the British economy in the long run per government projections, with GCC tariff reductions covering about 93 percent of UK goods exports after a transition of up to 10 years and saving an estimated £580 million in annual duties, while Britain removes tariffs on all current GCC exports on entry into force, Arab News reports. "They deliver their full benefits only when trade routes are secure," Chatham House's Neil Quilliam said of the tariff cuts, citing the Hormuz disruption as proof that the line between economic and maritime security is "difficult to sustain"; Arab News restates the Kpler count, four vessels on Thursday against a 10-day average of 16, and the strait's shares of 38 percent of crude, 29 percent of LPG and 19 percent of LNG flows. Marco Forgione of the Chartered Institute of Export and International Trade put UK-GCC trade in 2025 at more than $71 billion, making the bloc Britain's 10th largest trading partner, and said that "since February 2026, indicative data shows a sharp shock, with UK exports down by up to 25 percent, with some sectors suffering a much bigger reduction; for example, sheep-meat trade has dropped by 80 percent." A British government source told Arab News the deal is "not behind schedule" and work is proceeding "as standard" to bring it into operation "as soon as possible."

The Gulf's question to London is not tariffs. "It is difficult to overlook the degree of expectation across the Gulf during the Iran war that the UK would play a more active role," RUSI's Burcu Ozcelik told Arab News, arguing that the agreement's credibility depends on whether Gulf governments believe Britain takes their "core security concerns seriously" and that diversified supply chains are not "substitutes for addressing underlying Iranian threats." Britain's stated contribution is John Healey's March 9 statement to Parliament describing British aircraft intercepting threats to Gulf allies and defensive air operations in support of the UAE; whether Downing Street has put British advisers or air defence in the Kingdom on the record remains not established for a fourth day. Quilliam argues the crisis "strengthens" the case for the agreement because commercial interests are "tied to regional stability"; Forgione says instability "raises the premium on reliable partners." The article's second theme, a Cardiff memorandum by the first ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland declaring "constitutional change is coming," is a British domestic matter this desk records only for the Gulf investor's reading: Robert Mogielnicki of PoliSphere calls a breakup unlikely and says Gulf investors would "manage," and Scottish exports to the Gulf ran at about $1 billion last year.