The Ocean Koi, the Barbados-flagged tanker the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized on May 8 and handed to Iranian judicial authorities the same week, remained in Iranian custody Sunday night with no release disclosed. [1][2] Iranian state media described the vessel as redirected to a southern Iranian port and placed under court process for alleged "violations" tied to the country's oil exports. [3] The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Ocean Koi on February 25 for moving Iranian crude under a Chinese-linked beneficial owner.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet disclosed no F/A-18 strafing operations in the Strait of Hormuz for May 9 or May 10. The paper's count of the sea ledger now reads: Hasna disabled May 6, Sea Star III and Sevda disabled May 8 in the opening of the blockade run, and Ocean Koi seized the same day by Iran. [1][2] Five days into the visible kinetic ledger, two days have produced disablings, one has produced a seizure, and two have produced silence — Sunday among them.

The silence is the read. The Sunday Iran's signed counter to the fourteen-point framework reached Washington through Pakistan, the U.S. naval aviation tempo did not produce a new strike, and the IRGC produced no second seizure. Whether the pause is operational or political is the question Monday's CENTCOM disclosure cycle inherits. The Ocean Koi sits in Iranian judicial custody as the documentary anchor of a register that, for one day, chose restraint. [3]

-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem