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The ongoing deadlock between Iran and the U.S. over the Strait of Hormuz is now triggering a global economic crisis whose impacts are increasingly being felt at home. Any prospect of negotiations at present appears remote, as Donald Trump claims that the ceasefire between the two countries is on “life support,” while Iran maintains control of the vital waterway. The impact of the war has already been felt across Asia, but now threatens looming shortages on critical inputs like fertilizer in the U.S. as well.Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain, Maysa Mustafa and Julian Andreone discuss the impacts of the shutdown and the current outlook on the Iran-U.S. standoff.At the same time, Israel is pursuing an aggressive military campaign across southern Lebanon, destroying entire communities as the country’s leaders openly threaten to replicate the tactics of wholesale destruction employed in the Gaza Strip against the Lebanese people. Journalist Courtney Bonneau joins the stream live from south Lebanon amid an ongoing wave of Israeli strikes in the region.Additionally, a new story on Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to the U.S. Treasury Department and its Iran sanctions program published in Drop Site sheds light on his quiet role in helping shape the political and economic landscape that gave rise to the current crisis. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The U.S. military escalation in the Strait of Hormuz is taking center stage as President Donald Trump contemplates whether to resume the war against Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that the ceasefire remains in effect despite some limited military activity since Trump announced Sunday that the U.S. would begin an operation to “guide” merchant vessels from the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has declared that it remains in full control of the management of the Strait and is proceeding with consolidating a new regime of rules governing transit.A senior Iranian official told Drop Site that Tehran believes a resumption of the war is highly likely and that it would include operations along Iran’s coastline and potentially strikes aimed at assassinating Iranian military and political leadership. Iranian military officials say they have been preparing to resume their retaliatory attacks across the Persian Gulf and attacks against Israel. Indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are ongoing, but Trump has denounced recent Iranian proposals, saying, “they have not yet paid a big enough price.” Tehran charges that the U.S. is issuing maximalist demands and Iran has no intention of capitulating. “Project Freedom is Project Deadlock,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X on Monday, referring to the new U.S. military operations in the Strait. “Events in Hormuz make clear that there’s no military solution to a political crisis. As talks are making progress with Pakistan’s gracious effort, the U.S. should be wary of being dragged back into [a] quagmire by ill-wishers.”On the Drop Site News livestream, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim speak to Abas Aslani, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran about the latest developments. Aslani describes Iran’s position on negotiations, the future of the Strait of Hormuz, the current decision making process in Tehran and the economic realities facing both Iran and the U.S. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday it will leave OPEC effective May 1, ending its membership in the oil cartel that dates to 1967 and removing the group’s third-largest energy producer.Drop Site’s Ryan Grim, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, and Maysa Mustafa discuss the implications of the move.They are also joined by Jacquline Sweet to discuss her latest investigation revealing the highest paid employees of the Israeli group running the infamous doxxing site Canary Mission.And as Israeli attacks on Lebanon continue with daily airstrikes, shelling and demolition in the south, NYU journalism professor Mohamad Bazzi joins to discuss Israel’s 50-year war on Lebanon, Hezbollah’s increasing use of fiber optic FPV drones as a tactic of asymmetric warfare, Israel’s campaign of destruction and erasure in southern Lebanon, and more. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Uncertainty remains over whether a new round of talks between the U.S. and Iran will take place in Pakistan before the ceasefire agreement between the two countries is set to expire on Wednesday. As of Tuesday afternoon, there has been no official confirmation from either Washington or Tehran on whether the talks will happen.Drop Site’s Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill discuss the current state of play, President Donald Trump’s comments, Iran’s view of the negotiations, and how developments in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend exacerbated tensions. They also play clips of Jeremy’s interview with prominent Iranian analyst Hassan Ahmadian, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at Tehran University. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Drop Site’s journalism is free to read because thousands of readers choose to fund it. If our work matters to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today.The war against Iran launched by the U.S. and Israel on February 28 has not gone according to plan. What was initially portrayed as a quick regime change action that would destroy the Islamic Republic and spark a domestic uprising soon morphed into a war of attrition in which Iran stunned the U.S., Israel, and international observers. Six weeks after the opening strikes that assassinated much of Iran’s leadership, it is President Donald Trump who appears desperate to find an exit. The Iran war is now at a definitive crossroads and the coming days will prove decisive.While the U.S. and Israel have pounded Iran with massive airstrikes, killing more than 3,300 people, Tehran has inflicted unprecedented damage on U.S. military infrastructure across the Persian Gulf. It forced the evacuation of more than a dozen military bases and other facilities and repeatedly hit Israel with ballistic missile and drone strikes, despite daily claims by the U.S. and Israel that its weapons capacity had been all but wiped out. Iran’s consolidation of control over the strategically-vital Strait of Hormuz has proven a potent symbol of its ability to impact not only the global economy, but to accentuate the political and strategic crisis Trump faces.The two-week ceasefire agreed between the U.S. and Iran on April 7 is set to expire on Wednesday. Tehran was deeply skeptical of accepting a temporary agreement with the U.S. Twice in one year, the U.S. and Israel launched massive military attacks against Iran in the middle of supposed negotiations. Iranian officials and analysts have consistently said they believe that scenario is likely to be repeated. But Iran ultimately moved forward with the Islamabad talks, after concluding that it had a stronger negotiating position than at any point since the 2015 nuclear agreement was voided in 2018 by Trump during his first term as president.In a wide-ranging interview, Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill spoke with Iranian analyst Dr. Hassan Ahmadian, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at Tehran University. Since the war began, Ahmadian has become one of the most prominent Iranian commentators in the Islamic world because of his viral appearances on Al Jazeera Arabic. He is frequently placed on debate shows where he battles as many as seven other guests and hosts. Scahill and Ahmadian talk about what Iran would be willing to accept as part of a deal with the U.S., how it could ensure that the U.S. and Israel do not renege on an agreement and restart the war, and how Iran will approach the issue of its enriched uranium stockpiles.“Iranians do not trust the Trump administration at all. But what they’re banking on is the fact that they stood against an aggression and forced them out of this aggression, short of achieving any of their goals,” Ahmadian said. “The Iranians see that they can balance asymmetrically the power of the United States and can push it back.”Ahmadian and Scahill discuss the internal decision-making process in Iran, debates among the political, religious and military echelons, and the role of Parliament Speaker Mohammed Baghar-Ghalibaf, Tehran’s lead negotiator in the current talks with the U.S. Ahmadian also offers a comprehensive overview of Iranian strategy and its perspective on reestablishing deterrence and regional balance in the aftermath of the U.S.-Israeli wars.“Iran wanted to push back in a way that forces its foes to think twice and thrice before attacking Iran once more. And I think they did that. The United States will think more than once before attacking Iran,” Ahmadian said. “Name another system whose top echelon are assassinated and is capable of continuing and also waging a retaliatory war effort against two big foes. I don’t see any historical parallel to this—that speaks volumes to the institutional, institutionalized level of the [Iranian] system.” Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Negotiations in Islamabad between Iran and the United States this past weekend ran for 21 hours from Saturday into Sunday and failed to produce a deal. When Vice President JD Vance emerged from the talks, he said that the U.S. had presented Iran with its “final and best offer,” framing the impasse around nuclear specifically—a framing Iran rejected. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who helped lead the Iranian delegation, said Iran and the U.S. were “inches away” from an “Islamabad MoU” following “intensive talks at highest level in 47 years,” but the talks fell through because of U.S. “maximalism, shifting goalposts and blockade.”Meanwhile, as Israel continued to bombard Lebanon on Tuesday and Hezbollah conducted retaliatory attacks, Israeli and Lebanese government officials met in Washington, DC, for their highest-level direct talks in decades. In the run-up to the meeting, Lebanon’s presidency said the talks would focus on announcing a ceasefire and setting a start date for bilateral talks. However, Israel has said it would not discuss a ceasefire during the talks and instead would focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem in a televised address Monday rejected the planned meeting, calling the talks “futile” and urging the Lebanese government to take “a historic and heroic stance” by refusing to attend.Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous discuss the latest with Palestinian American journalist Rami Khouri , a distinguished public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut and nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington, DC.Jeremy and Sharif also discuss the case of American born Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who was arrested six weeks ago in Kuwait where he remains in detention and faces prosecution in a special tribunal over social media posts related to the Iran war. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

A fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire took hold this week as President Donald Trump insisted that the U.S. warships and troops deployed to the Middle East for the war will remain in the region.Meanwhile, Iran’s speaker of parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf will reportedly join Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in leading talks in Islamabad with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Ghalibaf reiterated that “Lebanon and the entire Resistance Axis, as Iran’s allies, form an inseparable part of the ceasefire,” following Israel’s massive bombardment of Lebanon on Wednesday just hours after the ceasefire was announced, which left more than 300 people dead and over 1,150 wounded. Drop Site’s Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill, Murtaza Hussain, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous unpack the context around the ceasefire agreement, the attack on Lebanon, and what it all portends for the U.S. and the region. Lebanese journalist Lylla Younes talks about witnessing Wednesday’s brutal bombardment of Beirut, and Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed remembers his colleague Mohammed Samir Washah, a correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher who was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike near Gaza City on Wednesday. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

As heavy U.S.-Israeli airstrikes pounded targets across Iran on Tuesday, President Donald Trump reiterated his extreme threats against all Iranians in a post on social media, writing: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” Trump had previously given a deadline of Tuesday 8 p.m. ET to “Open the F****n’ Strait, you crazy b******s” otherwise the U.S. would heavily target civilian infrastructure in Iran.Iran’s revolutionary guard warned on Tuesday that it would “deprive the U.S and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” if Trump carried out his threat. “We have exercised great restraint and had considerations in choosing retaliatory targets, but from now on all these considerations have been removed,” the IRGC said.Last-ditch diplomatic efforts are under way to avert a further escalation of the war. The Iranian government has repeatedly and consistently laid out its own demands for an agreement setting out a permanent end to the war—trading concessions on its nuclear program for sanctions relief and recognition of its ability to exercise control over the Strait of Hormuz. Drop Site’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Murtaza Hussain discuss the latest with Sina Azodi, Assistant Professor of Middle East Politics at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.And as the Israeli invasion and bombardment of Lebanon continues, Beirut-based Drop Site contributor Lylla Younes discusses Israel’s ongoing scorched earth campaign, its deliberate targeting of journalists and emergency workers, and its use of tactics to foment sectarianism in Lebanon. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran stretches into its fourth week, Tehran is denying claims by President Donald Trump that the U.S. and Iran are in the midst of negotiations to end the war, saying that no direct talks are occurring. Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, and Murtaza Hussain discuss the latest.Grim and Hussain are also joined by journalist Alexis Daloumis on the ground in Sulaymaniyah, in northeastern Iraq’s Kurdistan region near the Iranian border. Daloumis is the director of the documentary “Belkî Sibê,” that follows leftist Western fighters—of which he was one—who fought alongside the Kurdish-led, American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in their battle against ISIS. Analyst Trita Parsi, the executive Vice President of Quincy Institute, also joins to discuss the latest geopolitical developments around the war on Iran.Grim also discusses his recent trip to Cuba which is suffering from severe power shortages as a result of the Trump administration’s oil blockade which is affecting everything from hospitals to water systems.And Sharif Abdel Kouddous speaks about Palestinian journalist and Drop Site contributor Hossam Shabat on the one-year anniversary of his assassination by the Israeli military. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

On Tuesday, Israel announced that it assassinated Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani and the head of Irani’s internal security force and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling on Iranians to begin preparing to overthrow the government in Tehran. President Donald Trump and his senior aides claim that Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capacity has largely been decimated and that Iran is begging to negotiate an end to the war. Yet Iran continues to dominate access to the Strait of Hormuz and to launch strikes against both Israel and U.S. military outposts and bases across the Persian Gulf—and Iranian leaders say they will determine when the war ends.On Drop Site’s weekly livestream, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim discuss the latest developments on the 18th day of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, including yesterday’s reporting on how special envoy Steve Witkoff has been texting Iranian officials asking to resume talks, messages Iranian officials told Scahill they have ignored. The White House responded angrily to Scahill’s report, calling Drop Site “abhorrent,” and denouncing the publication as engaging in “America Last behavior.”Scahill then speaks to Dr. Foad Izadi of the University of Tehran about Larijani’s reported assassination, Iran’s current position in the war and the prospects for civil unrest or armed battles inside Iran.Finally, Grim speaks to Emran Feroz, a journalist and contributor to Drop Site, about the growing conflict on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and last night’s raid on a hospital in Kabul that killed 400 people and wounded about 250 others. Residents in the area told Drop Site News contributor Feroz that the hospital itself was struck during the attack. Pakistan has not immediately commented on the allegation.Follow Drop Site on X for breaking news updates.Read and subscribe at dropsitenews.com. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

In an exclusive interview with Drop Site News, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Esmail Baghaei rejected President Donald Trump’s claim that he launched the war because Iran was “going to attack first,” calling it a “big lie.”“There was no intention on the part of Iran to attack the United States,” he said. “They claim that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States,” Baghaei added. “Did we come to the Gulf of Mexico to target Los Angeles and other U.S. cities? Or did they come 6,500 miles away to Iranian shores?”On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the U.S. decided to preemptively attack Iran because the White House knew Israel was going to begin bombing Iran and that Iran would strike back. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”On Tuesday, Trump sought to recast the U.S. rationale and said that he believed Iran was going to launch an attack first. “They were going to attack if we didn’t do it. They were going to attack first—I felt strongly about that,” Trump said, charging that the Iranians “were getting ready to attack Israel. They were gonna attack others.”Rubio subsequently tried to walk his initial remarks back, saying that the media had mischaracterized his comments and—regardless of whether Israel was going to strike—Trump had already made a decision to attack Iran’s ballistic missile capability and go to war. “We are not going to put American troops in harm’s way,” Rubio said. “If you tell the president of the United States that if we don’t go first, we’re going to have more people killed and more people injured, the president’s going to go first. That’s what he did.”Baghaei called all of these claims by U.S. officials, “Lies after lies.”“I think the American people deserve to know, to understand what their government is doing,” Baghaie, who is also the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said. “How their government is abusing their money, their tax money, their image in the Middle East, in the Islamic world, just in furtherance of the whims of Benjamin Netanyahu, who is by the way, wanted by the ICC [International Criminal Court], who is a genocidal killer in Palestine.”Baghaei denied claims by some U.S. officials, including Trump, that Iran had asked to resume talks with the U.S. “They are killing our citizens. Municipalities, schools, hospitals, medical centers, sports clubs—everywhere is being bombarded and targeted by missiles by [the] Israeli and American war machine. Do you think any Iranian with common sense would be really in a position to reach out to the United States under these circumstances?” Baghaei asked. “We were negotiating with the United States,” he said, pointing out that another round of talks was scheduled for Monday, March 2. “Just two days before that, the United States and Israel attacked Iran,” he added. “We were betrayed. Diplomacy was betrayed.”Follow Drop Site on X for breaking news updates.Read and subscribe at dropsitenews.com. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Jeremy Scahill, Murtaza Hussain, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous discuss the latest developments in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran with Karim Makdisi, an associate professor at the American University of Beirut and a co-host, with his brothers, of the Makdisi Street podcast. With Hezbollah entering the war and Israel slowly moving troops into Lebanon, they discuss the spreading conflict in the context of Israel’s broader agenda in the region. "If you go back to the question of resistance, if you go to the question of Hezbollah, I think their calculation now is to say, look, if Iran falls, we're doomed, Hezbollah's doomed, Lebanon is doomed. So this is a situation where we need to enter in whatever capacity possible and support this particular attack or do whatever they can do in order to support this larger regional war, because otherwise the Israelis with the Americas are going to just pick off each of these entities one at a time in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Iran, et cetera. ... This is for them an existential situation, as it is in Iran."Attempting to weaken or overthrow Iran, they note, is a means to support Israel’s campaign of annihilation in Palestine and beyond.Stay INFORMED on our latest reporting: DropSiteNews.comWATCH our weekly live show, streaming every TUESDAY morning, on Substack, YouTube, and FacebookLISTEN to the show as a podcast on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts.SUBSCRIBE to Drop Site News. Our reporting is FREE, and we are committed to keeping it that way.To help support our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription, it’s what fuels our reporting:DONATE to support Drop Site's independent journalism. Help us continue our work with a tax-deductible contribution at donate.dropsitenews.com.Follow us on X for breaking news:Drop Site News:   / dropsitenews  Ryan Grim:   / ryangrim  Jeremy Scahill:   / jeremyscahill  Instagram:   / dropsitenews  Facebook:   / dropsitenews  Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/dropsitenews...WhatsApp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vb6V... Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The U.S. and Israel continue to attack Iran in a massive bombing campaign that President Donald Trump characterized as the start of a regime change war. Tehran has launched an unprecedented series of retaliatory attacks at U.S. military bases and other targets across the region and has hit Israel with a series of intense missile strikes. There are widespread reports that the US-led attacks have killed senior Iranian leadership. In this special Drop Site News broadcast, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim speak with Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American analyst and author who served as an advisor to former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, and Ali Abunimah, one of the founders of Electronic Intifada, who is in Amman, Jordan.Read all of Drop Site’s coverage of Iran here. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Ahead of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, there is a flurry of activity taking place inside the White House and Pentagon as Trump continues to deliberate whether he will authorize military strikes on Iran. A new round of talks between the U.S. and Iran are scheduled for Thursday in Geneva.Iranian officials tell Drop Site they are showing an “almost unbelievable level of flexibility” in talks with the U.S. to avert war, saying Tehran has “decided to exercise maximum flexibility on the nuclear issue, but only on the strict condition that it would genuinely prevent the outbreak of war.”Officials said Iran is directly addressing U.S. concerns on the nuclear issue with concrete proposals, and asserting a willingness to expand talks to other issues once a deal to avert imminent conflict has been concluded. Although talks are scheduled for Thursday, the prospects for a deal that would halt the U.S. drive to war remain fragile.Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain join Ryan Grim to discuss the latest.In the second half of the broadcast, Drop Site’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous discusses a new joint investigation by the independent research groups Earshot and Forensic Architecture on the Israeli military’s massacre of 15 Palestinian aid workers in southern Gaza on March 23, 2025. The report, based on eyewitness testimony and audio and visual analysis, found that Israeli soldiers fired nearly a thousand bullets at the aid workers—with at least eight shots fired at point blank range in execution-style killings.Read all of Drop Site’s coverage of Iran here.Read about the 2025 massacre of Palestinian aid workers here. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

With a U.S. military build-up unprecedented since the 2003 Iraq invasion underway in the Middle East, Iran may soon find itself in the cross-hairs of a massive military onslaught.President Donald Trump has publicly said that diplomatic channels with Iran remain open and Iranian diplomats say they are in the process of drafting a document responding to U.S. demands recently presented in the indirect talks in Geneva, Switzerland. But several former senior U.S. officials have told Drop Site that the size and scope of the military deployment indicate a high likelihood of a U.S. attack. One former senior intelligence official who informally advises the Trump administration put the chances of a strike at 80-90 percent.Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill spoke to former senior U.S. Middle East diplomat Robert Malley, a lead negotiator of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Malley has served under three U.S. presidents and has extensive experience negotiating with Iranian officials. He is currently a Senior Fellow and Lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs and author, with Hussein Agha, of “Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine.” Scahill and Malley also discuss the first meeting of the so-called Board of Peace and the ongoing Israeli war against Gaza.Read Drop Site’s coverage of the U.S. buildup here.Subscribe to Drop Site: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

On Friday, the High Court in the United Kingdom ruled on Friday that the government’s ban on the pro-Palestine direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization was unlawful. The ruling marked a major legal victory for the group, which was founded in 2020 and campaigns against companies complicit in “the occupation, apartheid and genocide of Palestine,” with a focus on Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. Huda Ammori, the 31-year old British-Palestinian co-founder of Palestine Action, spoke to Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous about the movement’s strategy, rooted in direct action to physically disrupt and dismantle the war machine that facilitates the genocide and occupation in Palestine. “As a Palestinian, the best moment of my life was being on top of an Israeli weapons factory with a sledgehammer being able to destroy that site. And knowing, that just that by being there and causing damage, they would have to shut down. Not just while I was there, but for weeks after.”Also on the livestream, Ryan Grim spoke with Carrie Prejean Boller on her ouster from Trump’s religious liberty commission. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The so-called Board of Peace that President Donald Trump officially launched in Davos, Switzerland last week is developing sweeping plans for a U.S.-backed administration to rule Gaza. Leaked documents exclusively reported on by Jonathan Whittall show the Board’s bureaucratic plans for total control of Gaza—without Palestinian participation or input.Whittall, who was a senior UN official in Palestine before being expelled by Israel last year, joins Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous to discuss the reality on the ground in Gaza, Trump’s installation of himself as the indefinite chair of the Board of Peace, and what Israel is doing to make its presence in Gaza permanent.Jonathan Whittall is a political analyst with two decades of experience in humanitarian work with Médecins Sans Frontières and the UN. He is now executive director of KEYS Initiative.Pieces discussed:https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/leaked-board-of-peace-resolution-gaza-trump-ushttps://www.dropsitenews.com/p/gaza-yellow-line-earth-berms-blocks-physical-barrier-israel-palestinianshttps://www.dropsitenews.com/p/cmcc-leaked-documents-gaza-residential-zone-surveillance-checkpoints-rafah Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Documentary photographer and essayist Kaveh Rostamkhani has been on the ground in Tehran throughout the unrest and bloodshed that gripped Iran over the past weeks, and he published an essay on Instagram on Wednesday under the title, “Iran Unrests: A Feast for Vultures.” Rostamkhani describes some of what he observed and raises questions about the events that took place:"In what would become the longest internet blackout in Iran’s history, only a semi-functional nationwide intranet was left available. Not only had the security forces clearly underestimated the mobilisation capabilities of the monarchists and their accomplices, but also observers and ordinary citizens were surprised by the excessive riots. By Saturday, January 10th, the nation would wake up soaked in blood."Over the next days, eye and ear witnesses recounted harrowing atrocities. One told me that in their neighbourhood there had been so many corpses that the authorities had to patrol through the blocks and load them onto pick-ups. The scale of deaths is beyond deniability, thus, the state TV airs scenes from Tehran’s legal medicine morgue, where scores of corpses are piled waiting to be identified by mourning relatives.It might be easy to solely accuse the regime of a massacre of thousands, as many activists quickly did, though the reality seems to be more complex. Whilst there is a high number of deaths apparently as a result of a firm crackdown and the use of live ammunition, among the corpses there are also scores who have died due to wounds from knives, carpet cutters, and other improvised sharp blades. Then there are others who have endured gunshots at close range. Still others have succumbed to burns. And this is not an isolated issue limited to Tehran or a certain area, but all over the country there are also numerous corpses that have succumbed to wounds none of which correspond with a crowd and riot control perspective. It doesn’t make any sense for security forces to risk physical engagement and injury when their units have a de facto carte blanche to use lethal ammunition from a safe distance."Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill spoke with Rostamkhani on Thursday morning. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The U.S. is moving additional military assets into the Middle East amid speculation Trump could green light an attack on Iran at any moment. The sense that an overt war is imminent has abated and the protests, riots, and bloodshed in the streets of Iran that took place earlier this month have, for now, ended, yet the incendiary situation remains liable to develop into wider conflict. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that if Iran sought to assassinate him, “the whole country's going to get blown up.” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that any attempt to assassinate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation.”Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill spoke to Dr. Foad Izadi, professor of American studies and international relations at University of Tehran, on Wednesday. They discussed the origins of the protests, the narrative war, how Iran might respond to another military attack by the U.S. and more.“The U.S. wants to repeat the Libya experience, disintegrate Iran, take out the oil-rich southern part, and then the rest of the country would fall apart. This is the ultimate plan they have,” said Izadi. “I don't think they have given up. I think Trump has basically given the Iran portfolio to Netanyahu.  He decides what to do. And then basically Trump implements whatever Netanyahu has decided to do. And Trump is going to be in office for another three years. So I don't think they are done with Iran.”Behind the war of words between the U.S. and Iran are two competing narratives about what took place in early January. Western governments and much of the corporate media have characterized Iran as an authoritarian regime, one facing widespread protests, that carried out a series of bloody massacres. Opponents of the Islamic Republic, including Iranians who participated in the protests, have characterized this moment as one where a dying repressive regime, desperate to keep its grip on power, has violently crushed protests by those who dare to oppose it. Iran has pushed back forcefully on both these allegations and this description, saying that the domestic unrest is nothing short of a U.S.-Israeli sponsored violent infiltration in the country that sought to hijack legitimate protests to pave the way for regime change. Iranian officials have charged that what began as peaceful marches—meeting no violent crackdown from the state—turned deadly when agitators, encouraged and supported by the U.S. and Israel, began attacking government buildings, religious sites, and other infrastructure, while assassinating and executing police and other security personnel, along with ordinary citizens. Iran said the events of the past weeks are a continuation of the 12-day war waged against Iran in June that saw the U.S. and Israel bomb the country for 12 days. For the past 12 days, the government has almost entirely shut down the internet in Iran. The limited internet has made it very difficult to independently verify events on the ground. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

A new wave of mass protests has erupted across Iran, sparked by deepening economic crisis, and escalating in some areas into a revolt against the ruling government. Human rights monitors say that hundreds of protesters and members of government security forces have been killed amid a sweeping crackdown—with fears mounting over mass arrests, death sentences, and destruction of critical infrastructure. An internet blackout remains in effect over most of Iran, but final death tolls are expected to rise. The unrest has also prompted renewed threats of U.S. military intervention, with President Donald Trump threatening attacks on Iran and cancelling planned talks with Iranian officials. Iranian leaders meanwhile have warned they are prepared for war if the U.S. escalates, including by targeting U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf.Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain are joined by Narges Bajoghli, an associate professor of anthropology and Middle East Studies at John’s Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and Samira Mohyeddin, managing editor for On The Line Media, to break down what’s driving the protests, what we know under conditions of severe information blackout, and why Washington’s talk of intervention carries enormous risks for both Iranians and the broader region.Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to Drop Site at https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim discuss the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the situation in Venezuela with Carlos Ron, Venezuela’s former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America, and Jack Murphy, a journalist and former Army Ranger.Ron says anger and indignation over American aggression has “served to bring together the Venezuelan population,” with mass mobilization in support of the Bolivarian project, and no visible opposition effort to capitalize on the attack. There’s “no fracture” within the governing base, he tells Drop Site, as Caracas gradually returns to daily life.Murphy lays out in detail how the operation to kidnap Maduro unfolded, citing months of preparation, elite U.S. units, and critical local assets, including a CIA source very close to Maduro.Murphy’s reporting can be read here on The High Side: https://thehighside.substack.com/p/bold-delta-force-raid-leads-to-captureSubscribe to Drop Site News: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

A major new report by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab that reviewed and analyzed satellite imagery has found that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) “engaged in widespread and systematic mass killing in El-Fasher, North Darfur upon gaining total control of the city and surrounding area on 26 October 2025.” The report found that the RSF “engaged in a systematic multi-week campaign to destroy evidence of its mass killings through burial, burning, and removal of human remains on a mass scale. This pattern of body disposal and destruction is ongoing.”Nathaniel Raymond, the executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab, joins Drop Site’s Ryan Grim and Sharif Abdel Kouddous to discuss the findings of the report, the critical role of the United Arab Emirates in funding and arming the RSF, and why he thinks the worst violence is yet to come. Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill joins the livestream to talk about his exclusive interview with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, what disarmament of the Palestinian resistance really means, the state of negotiations around phase 2 of the so-called “ceasefire,” and more.Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to Drop Site at https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The foreign policy of the Trump administration has followed a similar pattern to past administrations, both Republican and Democrat, despite campaigning as a “peace president.” Past presidents have been influenced by the neoconservative foreign policy establishment that has reigned since the end of the Cold War—and Trump has been no different.Trump has attacked Yemen and Iran, supported Israel amid its genocide in Gaza, and is now targeting Latin America and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.The Trump administration is offering more of what the world is used to from the U.S.—endless wars waged for the benefit of a small elite and largely at the expense of ordinary people.After supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Trump is currently pushing forward a plan to transform the Gaza Strip into a protectorate run by Israel and the Gulf Arab states that would potentially eliminate the future sovereignty of the Palestinian people, and is likely to be rejected by Palestinians themselves.This week, Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Erik Sperling, the executive director of the advocacy group Just Foreign Policy. Hussain and Sperling discuss Trump’s foreign policy maneuvers, including the Gaza plan, Trump’s strikes on Venezuelan boats, and more.Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The genocide in Gaza has slowed with the so-called ceasefire but it has not stopped. The Israeli attacks, airstrikes, shelling, shootings continue. More Palestinians are killed in Gaza nearly every day. The demolition and destruction of Gaza continues. The heavy Israeli restrictions on food, fuel, medicine, reconstruction materials entering Gaza continues. The famine continues. The exchange of captives according to the so-called first phase of the deal is nearly over and there is no real substantive agreement on what comes next.As all eyes have been on Gaza, there has been a massive escalation of violence and attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israeli troops are conducting raids on villages and towns on a daily basis, displacing families, conducting mass arrests and shooting and killing Palestinians. Meanwhile, settlers operate with complete impunity and in collaboration with the Israeli military. Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and Jerusalem since October 2023, including over 200 children. Of those 200 children who have been killed, 42 have been killed since the beginning of this year alone. So the violence is only accelerating.October, which marked the start of the olive harvest in Palestine, marked the highest monthly number of recorded Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians by UN OCHA since the agency began documenting such incidents in 2006. OCHA recorded more than 260 attacks in October resulting in casualties, property damage or both—an average of eight incidents per day. Meanwhile, one in every five Palestinians killed by Israeli forces so far in 2025 across the West Bank and Jerusalem is a child.In the month of October alone, 442 Palestinians were arrested in the West Bank, including 33 children. Today, Israel is undergoing a periodic review by the UN Committee against Torture in Geneva and is facing numerous allegations of torture, abuse, starvation, isolation, medical neglect, and more against Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.Diana Buttu, a Palestinian human rights attorney and former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, joins Drop Site’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Murtaza Hussain to talk about the accelerating surge of Israeli violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem; the torture and abuse of Palestinians captives in Israeli prisons and detention centers; and the lack of accountability for the genocide in Gaza. Murtaza also discusses “The Epstein Files”— his exclusive investigative series with Ryan Grim on Jeffrey Epstein’s role in Israeli intelligence operations through his relationship with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to Drop Site at https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Nearly two weeks into the ceasefire in Gaza, not a day has gone by without Israel violating the agreement.It has killed Palestinians in shootings, shelling and airstrikes on a routine basis. Last week, in one of the deadliest attacks, Israel killed 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family—including seven children—when it fired a tank shell on their vehicle on October 17 in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City as they were trying to return to their home to check on it. That attack did not make international headlines. Two days later, Israel unleashed a wave of airstrikes on Gaza after two of Israeli soldiers were killed in Rafah in what the Israeli military claimed was an attack by Palestinian fighters, although it appears their vehicle drove over an unexploded IED. Israel’s response was to bomb cafes, tents, school and homes across Gaza killing dozens of Palestinians.In total, nearly 100 Palestinians have been killed in direct Israeli attacks since the start of the ceasefire, according to the health ministry, and over 300 wounded. The official recorded death toll has gone up much more than that because nearly 450 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble. As the world focusses its attention on the bodies of the dead Israel captives, not nearly as much attention or focus is put on the estimated 10,000 Palestinians who are missing and buried under the rubble across Gaza as Israel is restricting the equipment and resources needed to begin the difficult task of retrieving them.Israel is also violating the ceasefire by not allowing in the minimum amount of aid Gaza needs—600 trucks a day— as outlined in the agreement, and the famine in Gaza is still ongoing. Eyad Amawi, a representative of the Gaza Relief Committee in Deir al-Balah, joins Drop Site’s Ryan Grim and Sharif Abdel Kouddous to discuss the latest on the ground. Ryan also discusses the latest in Maine’s Democratic primary, where a new poll shows Senate candidate Graham Platner leading Gov. Janet Mills 58-24. Platner, a former Marine, has faced a torrent of criticism over re-surfaced Reddit posts and a covered-up tattoo from his military days depicting a Nazi skull.Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to Drop Site at https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The tech industry has undergone a political shift in recent years, pivoting towards greater support for, and acquiescing to, authoritarian governments and movements around the world.One key example has been Israel and Palestine, and how tech platforms are supporting the Israeli state.In previous years, technology platforms offered greater freedom and attention to Palestinian narratives that had been ignored or suppressed by other media.But today, technology and social media platforms are censoring and suppressing pro-Palestinian speech. And, most notably, the technology companies are cozying up to the Israeli government and defense sector, forging close links, even as the genocide in Gaza continues.As Drop Site News reported last year in a special multi-part podcast called “The Palestine Laboratory,” much of this tech is actively used in Israel’s military onslaught on Palestinians.This week, Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Omar Zahzah, an assistant professor at San Francisco State University. Zahzah is also the author of: “Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle.”Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was made in part with support from The Intercept. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Despite the declaration of a Gaza “ceasefire,” Israel has continued to conduct military strikes and refused to allow the agreed-upon number of trucks carrying food, medicine, and other life essentials to the enclave. Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, announced Wednesday that it had handed over the remains of all of the deceased Israeli captives it could reach without heavier equipment and international assistance. While Israel understood that it would take time to recover all of these bodies because many are buried under the rubble from its two years of sustained bombing of Gaza, it has falsely accused Hamas of violating the terms of the agreement.Meanwhile, Palestinian captives freed from Israeli prisons have returned to Gaza and the occupied West Bank describing horrific conditions and torture they endured. Health authorities in Gaza also said that the bodies of deceased Palestinians returned to Gaza show signs of torture and abuse with some bodies still having arms or legs cuffed.While Israel’s massive bombing of Gaza has largely ended and aid is beginning to enter the Strip, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are increasingly focused on demands that Gaza be disarmed and demilitarized, terms that Hamas negotiators did not formally agree to as part of the ceasefire deal. This issue will be at the center of the next phase of Gaza talks, which Hamas has said must include the participation of all Palestinian factions and parties.On this week’s Drop Site News livestream, Jeremy Scahill speaks with Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada about the state of the “ceasefire.” They also discuss the actions of local law enforcement and resistance fighters in Gaza aimed, they say, at restoring order, punishing collaborators and war profiteers.Watch on YouTube or listen on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to Drop Site News here. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Today, Drop Site presents an episode from our friends at Question Everything, a podcast from KCRW and Placement Theory.The episode, titled “The Film the BBC Wouldn’t Air,” tells the inside story of how the BBC killed an important and timely documentary film into Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.The British network faced relentless criticism for its decision to not air the film. Question Everything’s producer Sophie Kazis tells the story. The episode features Ramita Navai, an award-winning British-Iranian investigative journalist and Ben de Pear, an award-winning British journalist.You can watch the film the BBC wouldn’t air, “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack,” on Zeteo.com.Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Today marks two years of genocide in Gaza. Two years of the most violent episode in the modern history of Palestine.Israel has killed over 67,000 Palestinians, including over 20,000 children. That number is a bare minimum. Thousands more are missing under the rubble. There have been countless massacres. Flour massacres, aid massacres, Red Crescent massacres. School massacres. The massacres of over a thousand families and bloodlines that have been wiped out forever.We do not even know the number of deaths not caused by bombs or bullets or shells or drones—the number of preventable deaths caused by Israel’s assault. We do know that at least 460 Palestinians, including 154 children have starved to death and more are dying every day from Israel’s campaign of forced starvation and famine.Entire cities have been reduced to dust and broken concrete. Homes, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches, bakeries—everything that knits a community and society together has been destroyed. Even color seems to have been obliterated. Everything now covered now in gray dust.92% of residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Over 500 schools and every university has been damaged or destroyed. Only 1.5% of cropland is still accessible and suitable for cultivation.Nearly every Palestinian in Gaza —95% of the population—has been displaced, most of them multiple times. Hundreds of thousands now live in tent cities where they are still bombed and shelled and shot.Health care has been devastated. Out of 38 hospitals in Gaza, 25 are completely shut down while the rest are barely functioning. The number of doctors and medical personal killed is over 1,700. Over 360 have been detained.Journalists have been slaughtered. Israel has killed between 250 and 270 journalists and media workers over the past two years. An unprecedented number. There is so much that is unprecedented.Israel’s massive colonial violence is by no means confined just to Gaza. Over the past two years, we’ve seen a huge escalation in daily attacks and dispossession in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers and soldiers. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been driven from their homes in the largest wave of displacement in the West Bank since 1967. The number of Palestinians arrested in the West Bank and Jerusalem over the past two years has topped 20,000, including over 1,600 children. At least 77 political prisoners have died in custody.And it is not just Palestine. Israel has bombed Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Qatar.All of this has been backed and supported and armed by the United States more than any other country. A new report by the Costs of War Project at Brown University found that the U.S. has provided Israel with at least 21 billion dollars in military aid over the past two years alone. It concludes with the obvious: Israel would not have been able to sustain its wars across the Middle East without massive US backing.On today’s Drop Site livestream, Palestinian human rights lawyer and legal scholar Noura Erakat joins Drop Site’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous to discuss all of this and more. Erakat addressed the UN Security Council on Monday—only the second Palestinian woman to brief the Security Council since October 7, 2023 and the first to present the legal case that Israel’s war on Gaza is genocide.Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to Drop Site at https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Hamas issued a response to President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire proposal on Friday “in the interest of stopping the aggression and genocide” in the Gaza Strip. The movement said it “values the Arab, Islamic, and international efforts, as well as the efforts of U.S. President Donald Trump, aimed at halting the war on Gaza, securing a prisoner exchange, allowing immediate entry of aid, rejecting the occupation of Gaza, and rejecting the displacement of our Palestinian people from it.” It continued:"Within this framework, and in order to achieve an end to the war and the full withdrawal from Gaza, the Movement declares its approval for the release of all Israeli captives—living and remains—according to the exchange formula outlined in President Trump’s proposal, with the necessary field conditions in place to carry out the exchange. In this context, the Movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter, through mediators, negotiations to discuss the details."The Movement also renews its approval to hand over administration of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body of independents (technocrats), based on Palestinian national consensus and backed by Arab and Islamic support."As for other issues in President Trump’s proposal relating to the future of Gaza and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, these are tied to a collective national stance and rooted in relevant international laws and resolutions. They will be discussed within a unified Palestinian national framework in which Hamas will participate and contribute with full responsibility."Trump reposted the statement on Truth Social and responded postively in a separate post: “Based on the statement just issued by Hamas , I believe they are ready for for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it’s far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out. This is not about Gaza alone, this is about long sought PEACE in the Middle East.”In a breaking Drop Site livestream, Prominent Palestinian academic and activist, Dr. Sami al-Arian, director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University, joins Drop Site journalists Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous to analyze the latest developments.Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to Drop Site at https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim break down what Trump’s 20-point plan, released on Monday, would really mean for Gaza. “The priority is going to be investment… making that money and the kickbacks,” Scahill warns, comparing it to Iraq after 2003, with Tony Blair is set to oversee redevelopment. “Colonial powers always used the local population to test out whatever new technologies, new theories, new medicines,” he says.Palestinian factions, consequently, largely see Trump’s “peace plan” as a farce. Crafted by Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides with no Palestinian input, it ties food and medicine to Hamas’ surrender and hands Gaza to a foreign “viceroy.” Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to Drop Site at https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

A number of western states, including the UK, Canada, Portugal, France, Belgium, and Australia recently recognized Palestinian statehood as the United Nations General Assembly is underway in New York City.At the same time, talks between Iran and the E3 counties—Germany, France and Britain—to avert the looming “snapback” of UN sanctions are breaking down. The developments increase the odds of another war between Iran and Israel backed by the US and Europe.Meanwhile, Russian drone incursions into NATO territory could spark direct conflict with Moscow.Drop Site News’ Murtaza Hussain speaks with Dr. H.A. Hellyer, a British scholar of Middle East politics and security and a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the Center for American Progress, about the shifting global order.Hellyer highlights that while Palestine has long been recognized by over 140 UN member states of the Global South, the recent recognition by western states serve to isolate Washington. Symbolically, he says, it affirms Palestinians’ right to self-determination, but recognition without enforcement risks repeating the Oslo “trap”: lofty rhetoric masking impunity as Israel expands settlements and intensifies its genocidal campaign in Gaza. Without pressure or consequences, recognition could amount to little more than “recognizing a graveyard.” Hellyer argues that the collapse of the U.S.-led order risks ushering in a fragmented era where the most vulnerable populations pay the highest price.Subscribe to Drop Site’s free and independent journalism at https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The Trump 2.0 administration is has been escalating pressure on Venezuela, as part of a broader increase of tension in Latin America.In recent weeks, the US has begun sending military forces to the Caribbean and Puerto Rico. And in three separate instances, the U.S. military has bombed small boats leaving Venezuela, which they have claimed—without evidence—contained drug traffickers and members of the gang Tren de Aragua.For years, the U.S. government has been at odds with the Venezuelan government and has supported efforts to depose President Nicolás Maduro. One of the last acts of the Biden administration was to raise its bounty for Maduro to $25 million. Now, the Trump administration is increasing the pressure once again, escalating accusations that Maduro and his top allies are leaders of criminal organizations. Earlier this year, the Trump administration raised the bounty for Maduro to $50 million.Tactics from the war on terror are being deployed in Latin America. The Trump administration has declared Tren de Aragua to be a terrorist organization. In addition to opening the door to military strikes, like the attacks on boats near Venezuela, the designation allowed the administration to use the Alien Enemies Act to expel hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison.This week, Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Adam Isacson, the Director for Defense Oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, to discuss developments in Venezuela, Colombia, and the region at large.Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous discuss Israel's Gaza City offensive and its unprecedented strike on Hamas in Doha, Qatar. "Gaza is burning," Israel’s defense minister said, as the military launched the main part of its ground operation to seize and take control of Gaza City. At least 68 people were killed by heavy Israeli bombardment across Gaza since dawn, including 20 in the bombing of the Daraj neighborhood in central Gaza City alone, according to Al Jazeera.Drop Site’s reporters also discuss Israel’s strike on Sana’a on September 10 that killed 32 Yemeni journalists – which Sharif noted is “likely the deadliest attack on journalists in modern history.” Hundreds gathered at the Shaab Mosque for a mass funeral, coffins carried by honor guards as grieving families condemned the attack. Subscribe to Drop Site’s free and independent journalism at https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The Chinese government held a major military parade in Beijing on September 3, commemorating the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. The parade followed an international strategic and economic conference in China bringing together leaders from across Eurasia, including Russia, India, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and North Korea.The event highlighted China’s growing influence as a military power, as well as a defense exporter. Although China has been seen as a producer of low-end manufactured goods, its role in the global economy has radically shifted. In addition to making high-quality electric cars and consumer goods, Chinese factories are producing drones, ballistic missiles, tanks, and aircraft that are as good, or better, than those built by Western defense companies. And the scale is staggering.The Trump administration considers the Chinese Communist Party its primary adversary. And there have been concerns that the two countries may soon clash, including over control of the island of Taiwan.This week, Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Steve Hsu, a theoretical physicist, technologist, and analyst of Chinese military developments. Hsu is also the host of the podcast “Manifold.”Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to get Drop Site's journalism in your inbox: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

After nearly two years of brutal attacks by the Israeli government, portions of the Gaza Strip are now subject to a full-blown famine. That assessment comes from an international monitor known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, which issued a report last month officially declaring famine in the Gaza Governorate for the first time. The assessment comes after months of warnings from the World Food Program, World Health Organization, and other global NGOs stating that Israeli restrictions on food and other basic supplies to the territory were at risk of generating widespread deaths from hunger.The Israeli military has vowed to press on with its offensive in Gaza despite global backlash, stating that it plans to force the surviving population of the territory into camps after conquering Gaza City. In the meantime, the humanitarian situation is continuing to deteriorate.In response to the famine, some countries have begun airdrops of aid to the territory, with little success.This week, Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Chris Houston. Houston is an expert on humanitarian aid efforts who has worked in crisis zones in Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Yemen, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. He has also served on the board of directors of Doctors Without Borders, and is the founder of the Canadian Peace Museum.Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Ryan Grim is joined by philanthropist and frontline humanitarian Amed Khan to discuss the obstacles and urgency of delivering aid to Palestinians in Gaza. “Governments have been an absolute disaster. They are an embarrassment… we only have us,” Khan told Drop Site. He singled out the U.S. as “an absolute disaster,” noting that while Greece and Italy have quietly done some medical evacuations, no state is “punching at their weight.” Leaders across the world, he said, “can’t look themselves in the mirror and say, I did the right thing.”Khan is executive producing “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” premiering in Venice tomorrow. The film has major Hollywood names attached—including Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Alfonso Cuarón, and Jonathan Glazer. Grim also spoke with Drop Site’s Alex Colston aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, now on its way from Barcelona to Gaza in an attempt to break Israel’s siege. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Since the end of the 12-day war this summer, an uneasy ceasefire has held between Iran, Israel, and the United States.The war saw hundreds dead, as well as widespread destruction in both Iran and Israel. The short conflict that began with an Israeli surprise attack may have only set the stage for further conflict. The Israeli and U.S. attacks damaged, but did not destroy, the Iranian nuclear program, and despite attacks on Iran’s leadership, its government did not collapse. Meanwhile, both Iran and Israel have continued to trade threats, while President Donald Trump has indicated that the U.S. is likely to jump back into new rounds of fighting between the two countries.The next phase of the war between Iran, Israel, and their backers might possibly be far more bloody and violent than the first. The conflict also threatens to involve the U.S. in another major Middle Eastern war, even as politicians in the U.S. have promised to leave the region.This week, Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Parsi is an award-winning author with a focus on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. You can read his latest Substack piece here and his latest piece for Foreign Policy magazine here.Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The confirmed death toll in Gaza has crossed 62,000 with at least 26 Palestinians killed over the past 24 hours, including four while seeking aid, according to the Ministry of Health. Nearly 350 Palestinians were injured over the same period, bringing the total number of wounded since the start of the war to 156,573.The Israeli military has systematically attacked the healthcare system in Gaza—bombing, raiding and destroying hospitals, killing and imprisoning medical workers and staff, and preventing much needed medical aid from entering the territory. It has also severely restricted the number of medical evacuations allowed out of Gaza, with thousands of wounded Palestinians, including thousands of children, unable to receive medical attention abroad. Meanwhile, the Trump administration recently suspended all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza after far-right influencer Laura Loomer said she “obtained video footage” of a few severely injured Palestinian children arriving in the U.S.In Congress, Rep. Ro Khanna has been leading calls for the U.S. to recognize a Palestinian state. The letter follows announcements from France, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom that they would move toward recognizing a Palestinian state. Khanna has been repeatedly criticized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for his efforts.On this week’s Drop Site News livestream, Ryan Grim and Sharif Abdel Kouddous speak with Dr. Thaer Ahmad, an emergency medicine physician based in Chicago who has volunteered in Gaza about medical evacuations and with Rep. Ro Khana about Washington’s foreign policy toward Palestine. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Israel massacred six journalists in Gaza City on Wednesday in an airstrike on a media tent outside Al-Shifa Hospital—an attack that sent shockwaves throughout Gaza and made headlines across the globe. The Israeli military publicly proclaimed the attack was a targeted assassination of renowned Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif.Over the past 22 months, Israel has killed at least 238 journalists in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office, an unprecedented slaughter of journalists in modern history.Al-Sharif was the most recognizable Palestinian journalist still alive and reporting from Gaza and had been openly targeted by the Israeli military for months. Killed alongside him were four of his Al Jazeera colleagues—Mohammed Qraiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammed Noufal—and Mohammed Al-Khalidi of the media outlet Sahat.As the threats against al-Sharif escalated, he penned a letter in April to be published upon his death. “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,” he wrote. “I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification—so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half.”Western media institutions have, for the most part, remained largely silent or actively enabled the killing of their Palestinian colleagues in record numbers by parroting ludicrous claims by the Israeli military labelling journalists in Gaza as militants and terrorists.On this week’s Drop Site News livestream, Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous speak with Emmy and Peabody Award–winning Al Jazeera English journalist and documentary producer Laila al-Arian about the killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza and western media coverage of the genocide. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

For the past eight months, since the fall of the Assad government in December, Syria has been grappling with major internal crises and the legacy of a brutal 14-year civil war. While millions of Syrians have welcomed the collapse of the country’s previous regime, Syria today faces a new set of challenges. There is uncertainty over the future of the national economy, political rights, sovereignty, protection of minorities, and other issues vital to the country’s future.In addition to a wave of Israeli attacks on Syria that has continued to this day, Syria has been hit by outbreaks of sectarian violence that have called into question the motivations—and level of control—that the central government has over the country.Syria today is led by veterans of militant Islamist groups that fought the former regime. While the government has sought to put forward a pragmatic image to reassure both Syrians and the international community, today there remains a challenge dealing with thousands of foreign Islamist fighters who flocked to Syria to take part in the war.Now that the Assad regime has fallen, the role of those former fighters, including some from Western countries, could determine the future of Syria, as well as the region more broadly.Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Tam Hussein, an award-winning British investigative journalist and co-author of the book, To the Mountains: My Life in Jihad, from Algeria to Afghanistan, a biography of the Algerian militant leader Abdullah Anas. Hussain also authors the Substack publication “The Blood Rep.”Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Reports are emerging that an expanded Israeli military ground campaign accompanied by heavy bombing and artillery shelling is underway in various parts of Gaza, including reports of Israeli tanks pushing into the center of the enclave, increased ground attacks in Khan Younis, and deepening operations in Gaza City.Israeli media reported on Wednesday that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is favors a complete military takeover of Gaza, including in areas where Israeli captives are being held. Netanyahu is set to convene his war cabinet today to discuss next steps. As it stands, 88 percent of Gaza is already in a so-called “militarized zone” or under Israeli displacement orders.Meanwhile, the genocidal assault continues. At least 87 Palestinians were killed over the last 24 hours, including 52 killed in aid massacres, bringing the confirmed death toll in Gaza to over 61,000—a number that is widely acknowledged to be a vast undercount. Nearly 650 people were injured over the past day as well, bringing the number of injured to more than 150,000—many of those injuries are life altering.Eight Palestinians died of famine and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number who have died as a result of hunger to 188, including 94 children—many of them in the past 2 weeks alone as Israel’s deliberate starvation campaign in Gaza has reached what food experts are calling an irreversible tipping point.On this week’s Drop Site news livestream, Sharif Abdel Kouddous speaks to the prominent Palestinian scholar and historian Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University and the author of many books, his latest is "The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.”Khalidi recently published an article in the Guardian newspaper explaining why he is withdrawing from teaching a fall course at Columbia. This comes after Columbia University agreeing to pay a $200 million settlement to the Trump administration after it accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests calling for the university to disclose and divest from any ties to Israel. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza is continuing unabated. At least 74 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn today, including 36 Palestinians who were killed while seeking aid. The starvation campaign continues to worsen as a result of Israel’s policies that severely restrict food, fuel, and medicine from getting into Gaza. As starving Palestinians try and access the meager amount food located at either GHF “aid distribution” sites or coming in through UN convoys, they are shot at, and killed, every single day by Israeli forces.The ministry of health recorded five additional deaths due to famine and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of victims of famine and malnutrition since the start of the war to 180, including 93 children—dozens of these cases have occurred just in the past two weeks, as the widening famine has reached a tipping point. The current famine conditions were predicted months ago by food experts following Israel’s full spectrum siege that began on March 2—a year and a half into Israel’s genocidal assault—where aid had already been severely restricted.Gaza’s health care system has been systematically targeted by the Israeli military and is struggling to cope without medical supplies, with Palestinian doctors and medical workers suffering from hunger and malnutrition themselves. On Monday, officials at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis said at least 38 people died after arriving at the facility over the previous 24-hour period, and many hundreds more are being treated for injuries.Drop Site’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous speaks with Elidalis Burgos, a critical care nurse from the U.S. who has been volunteering at Nasser hospital for the past four weeks in the intensive care unit and emergency department. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The leading international authority on food crises—the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—on Tuesday said that the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” warning that the situation has reached “an alarming and deadly turning point” and predicting “widespread death” without immediate action.The finding comes as Palestinians in Gaza have begun to collapse in the streets from hunger and the number of deaths related to hunger and malnutrition has grown exponentially as a result of Israel’s deliberate campaign of mass starvation.Meanwhile, Columbia University has agreed to pay a $200 million settlement to the Trump administration, which accused the university of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza. The settlement was announced a day after Columbia informed nearly 80 students that they had been suspended for one to three years—or expelled—for taking part in protests against the war on Gaza.On this week’s Drop Site News livestream, Ryan Grim and Meghnad Bose speak to Mahmoud Khalil, the former Palestinian student at Columbia University who was a lead negotiator for the student protests and was imprisoned by ICE for 104 days in a Louisiana detention center before being released on bail last month by a federal judge. Khalil discusses the latest in Gaza, the role of protest movements, Columbia University, and more in an interview with Drop Site in lieu of our weekly broadcast. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The U.S. remains the most powerful single nation in the world, but it is not the most powerful in every region. While the U.S. remains mired in numerous wars in the Middle East, it is facing a rapid challenge from the People’s Republic of China. In recent history, China has become a major economic, technological, and political power—even taking the place of the U.S. as the dominant economic actor in many parts of the world.The U.S. and China in recent years have transformed from erstwhile partners into fierce rivals that many fear is rapidly transforming into a new Cold War. As their rivalry grows, some observers warn that the economic decoupling now taking place between Washington and Beijing could be a prelude to a direct military clash over Taiwan in the years to come.Understanding the history and future of China is more important than ever. The central figure in Chinese politics today is the country’s leader and Communist Party chief Xi Jinping. But to understand Xi’s rise and contemporary Chinese politics, an even more interesting figure may be his father, Xi Zhongxun.The elder Xi was a leading figure in the Chinese Communist Party during the revolutionary era and a close associate of Mao Zedong. Like many Chinese officials of that generation, he suffered purges and repression, in the midst of a century of suffering that touched nearly the entire Chinese population, including his family and children.Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Joseph Torigian, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the author of the new book: “The Party's Interests Come First: The Life Of Xi Zhongxun, Father Of Xi Jinping.”Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Israel’s widening military assault on Gaza—the continued bombardment, the prolonged siege, the daily murder of starving people seeking aid, the expansion of ground operations and the carving up of Gaza with military corridors—has brought Gaza to a tipping point. Starving Palestinians have begun to collapse in the streets and die of hunger and thirst. At least thirty-three people have died from hunger and malnutrition over the past two days. Israeli troops gun down desperate people seeking meager food rations on a daily basis, with one of the deadliest aid massacres taking place on Sunday with nearly 70 people killed by the Israeli military as they approached a World Food Program aid convoy.On Monday, Israeli troops pushed into areas of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the first time since the beginning of the war. Deir al-Baah was the only city in Gaza that has not been subject to a major Israeli ground operation or suffered widespread devastation. Many Palestinians have sought refuge there and it is also the headquarters of several UN agencies and medical NGOs. Israeli forces raided the main staff residence of the World Health Organization in the city on Monday, forcing women and children to evacuate on foot toward the coast while male staff ere handcuffed, stripped, interrogated on the spot and screened at gunpoint.On this week’s Drop Site News livestream, Sharif Abdel Kouddous speaks to Eyad Amawi of the Gaza Relief Committee in Deir al-Balah about the latest assault on the city and the spreading famine in Gaza; and with Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of Jadaliyya and a former UN official who worked as a special adviser on Israel-Palestine for the International Crisis Group about how the US and Europe are allowing Israel to pursue its genocidal campaign with impunity. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Negotiations for a Gaza “ceasefire” deal are continuing in Doha, Qatar, as President Donald Trump claims an agreement could be reached as early as this week. Palestinian negotiators, however, have told Drop Site that Israel continues to demand terms that would allow the genocide to continue after a 60-day pause during which 10 Israeli captives would be released from Gaza. Israel has also been threatening to establish a concentration camp in southern Gaza to corral an initial 600,000 Palestinians to prepare them for eventual removal from Gaza entirely. As this process continues, Israel has further intensified its military assault with daily massacres that disproportionately kill children and women. Since late May, an average of 30 Palestinians have been killed as they tried to receive meager food rations from the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation established by the U.S. and Israel. On this week’s Drop Site News livestream, Jeremy Scahill speaks to Eyad Amawi of the Gaza Relief Committees about the increasing horrors being unleashed on Palestinians, the latest developments in the ceasefire negotiations, and how ordinary people in Gaza view the prospects for a deal to end the genocide. Jeremy also offers insights from sources involved with the negotiations and gives a comprehensive update on the state of affairs. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill, and Murtaza Hussain are joined by Jon Elmer of Electronic Intifada to break down today’s major developments.Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The United States carried out airstrikes last month against three sites in Iran tied to its nuclear program. The attacks were the culmination of years of belligerence that began when Trump violated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and embarked on a strategy of confrontation with Iran, at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.While the level of damage done to the sites remains unclear, the Iranian government has responded to the attacks by ceasing cooperation with international monitoring agencies. Iran is also hinting it retains the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon if it chooses.The standoff with Iran is just one aspect of a larger story of the reemergence of nuclear weapons and possible nuclear warfare as a major risk in the 21st century.The U.S. and Russia are currently in the process of building up to a new nuclear arms race, while, at present, China has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal of any country . Recently, the India and Pakistan conflict made many nervous that one of the countries would use nuclear weapons.After years of relative stability, the size of the nuclear club also looks very likely to grow with new nations potentially carrying out nuclear tests in the years ahead. These changes mean that the risk of a nuclear war is growing after the end of the Cold War rather than decreasing.Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Ankit Panda. Panda is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the author of the new book “The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon.”Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The Israeli genocide in Gaza is entering its 22rd month, with a staggering toll of dead and wounded continuing to rise every day. Throughout the war, the U.S. and many European nations have acted as shields for Israel—defending it against legal scrutiny, providing diplomatic and political support, and continuing to fund and arm its military assault.Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Anand Gopal, a journalist focused on the region and the author of the forthcoming book on Syria, “Days of Love and Rage.”Gopal discusses the history of the laws of war and systemic problems in the international legal system. If the laws of war are not able to protect civilians during conflicts, what are they good for? As Gopal explains, the genocide in Gaza exposes the underlying contradictions of the international legal system. Even though there are laws on the books, the international arbiters supposed to enforce them are made up of the belligerent states themselves. Hussain and Gopal discuss the international legal order and how the system itself makes civilian deaths inevitable.Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe