Two proxies the war's escalation watch turns on continue to be quiet on the second day after the deadline expired. Hezbollah has not claimed a strike. Ansar Allah — the Houthi movement — has not claimed a strike. Neither group's media outlets carried a kinetic claim through Thursday evening Tehran time.

Hezbollah's public business this week has been Lebanese-domestic. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Hezbollah's leader called on the Lebanese government to withdraw from direct talks with Israel in Washington, urging indirect negotiations instead. [1] The talks are scheduled for two days starting Thursday. The Hezbollah call is a political objection to a negotiating framework — not a military move. Senior Hezbollah leader Wafiq Safa told the BBC in mid-April that the group would abide by the ceasefire while keeping "its finger on the trigger." [2] The trigger has not been pulled this week.

The Houthi posture, on Foreign Policy's March account, has been described as "stages." [3] Their satellite channel Al-Masirah has carried Iranian messaging since the war began but stopped short of strike claims. The group's deputy information minister had previously raised the option of closing Bab al-Mandab, but the closure has not been activated. The last confirmed Houthi-attributed strike was a drone intercepted near Ramon Airport in late March — pre-ceasefire. The Houthis have launched no new salvo this week.

The pattern is consistent with the operating record. Tehran has not chosen to activate either proxy during the diplomatic phase. The escalation rungs the paper has tracked since the May 13 lead — Ocean Koi, Hormuz toll, Pentagon cost, IEA timeline — have all hardened operationally. The proxy rungs have not. The choice not to activate Hezbollah and the Houthis is its own data point: it preserves the channel through which a deal could still be reached without forcing Washington to break it.

Day 2 of post-deadline proxy silence. The strike feeds remain empty.

-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem