📰 MIDDLE EAST CRISIS BRIEFING — 04:35 CEST
6 sources | Day 34 — deep night
📌 THREAD: Military front — cluster bomb on Israel
Status: ESCALATION
[~02:00 CET] Wikipedia/AP — Iranian missile with cluster warhead hits construction site in Yehud: 2 workers killed, a third injured in Or Yehuda [AP]
Delta: First confirmed cluster bomb fatality in a civilian area in Israel — a new munition type compared to previous waves intercepted without casualties.
📌 THREAD: Yemen vector — Houthi attack overnight
Status: EVOLVING
[overnight] BBC — Fourth Houthi missile attack on Israel; Saudi Arabia and UAE report missiles/drones in airspace; Kuwait and Qatar intercept [BBC]
Delta: Houthis maintain an active independent vector regardless of Iran-coalition talks — confirms multi-vector front cannot be closed by a bilateral US-Iran ceasefire.
📌 THREAD: Hormuz — concrete collapse data
Status: STALEMATE / QUANTIFIED DATA
[Apr 3] Lloyds List Intelligence — Hormuz traffic: -94% vs same period 2025; only 2 ships confirmed to have paid tolls [AP]
[Apr 3] Kpler — Saudi Arabia bypassed 1 billion barrels via pipeline in March; Iraq begins trucking crude across Syria to avoid the strait
Delta: Lloyds and Kpler data quantify for the first time the real scale of the blockade: the market has partially adapted with alternative routes, but a 94% drop is structural — it won't bounce back quickly.
📌 THREAD: Iran response — formal retaliation announced
Status: EVOLVING
[04:11 CET] Al Jazeera — Iran formally vows retaliation after Karaj bridge strike [Al Jazeera]
Context: Araghchi had already responded: "Striking civilian infrastructure only conveys the defeat and moral collapse of an enemy in disarray" + implicit oil threat. The formal retaliation pledge post-bridge is now an official declaration.
📌 THREAD: US war cost
Status: USEFUL CONTEXT
[Apr 2] BBC — War cost $11.3 billion in first 6 days; currently $385 million/day (expert estimate, down from $500M/day as Iranian defenses weaken) [BBC]
Delta: First quantification of daily burn rate — contextualizes internal US political pressure for a fast exit.
📊 CASUALTY UPDATE — overnight (AP)
Iran: 1,900+ | Israel: 19 (↑ from 17) | Gulf: 24+ | USA: 13 service members | Lebanon: 1,300+ dead, 1M displaced, 27 killed in last 24h
No strategic Tier-1 change this cycle. Main trend: the war is producing increasingly concrete cost and resilience data — for both sides.
Next pivot points to watch:
• April 8-9: postponed deadline for Iran power grid strikes (Trump)
• Iran's response to Karaj bridge: form and timing of announced retaliation
• Hormuz: if Iraq-Syria and Saudi bypasses scale, Iranian leverage changes