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Israel’s flailing chatbot army

2026-10-06T15:12:07Z

No longer able to rely on traditional lobbying, Israel is pouring huge funds into ‘cognitive warfare’ aimed at manipulating the responses of AI platforms.

The post Israel’s flailing chatbot army appeared first on +972 Magazine.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan activate Mecca defense pact; Democrats predict House majority; 17 killed in Ethiopia fighting

2026-10-06T13:52:54Z

Members of the Ethiopian pro-government Tigray Peace Force (TPF) inspect an empty Tigray police station abandoned by officers as Ethiopian federal and allied forces enter the Tigray capital, Mekelle, on October 4, 2026. Photo by AFP via Getty Images.

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 –

Yemen: Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia activate Mecca defense pact, will deploy forces to Gulf kingdom against Houthis. Ansarallah strikes Saudi airport, Aramco refinery. Saudi-backed Yemeni forces claim capture of Mocha as coalition expands attacks on Ansarallah.

Iran: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent celebrates collective economic punishment of Iranians. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian calls U.S. negotiations “futile.” U.S. President Donald Trump defends removal of U.S. bombers from UK base as seventh suspect arrested. Trump calls higher gas prices a “small price to pay” for war with Iran. Twelve sailors injured in attack on commercial vessel in Strait of Hormuz.

Palestine: Israeli attacks kill three, wound several across Gaza. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir joins demolition of Jerusalem apartment building as settlers torch Palestinian home, vehicles across the occupied West Bank. UK threatens to expel up to 27 Israeli diplomats over planned closure of East Jerusalem consulate. 111 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza in September.

Lebanon: Israeli airstrikes, artillery and gunfire target southern Lebanon amid “ceasefire.”

U.S.: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee adds six deep-red districts to “Red to Blue” list, predicts House majority of up to 240 seats. Former President Barack Obama to campaign in Detroit with Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Soldiers wounded in March Iranian drone strike describe medical failures, red tape, AP reports. Supreme Court opens new term with Boulder climate case against Exxon, Suncor. Trump signs order allowing the use of untaxed off-road diesel on highways. Trump approves firing squad execution for Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. DOJ seeks to revoke citizenship of 40 naturalized Americans. Border agents raid Arizona protest camp, fell centuries-old cottonwood for Trump’s border wall. Chicago woman shot five times by Border Patrol agent sues federal government. Trump says New York Times, other outlets should be “arrested” over coverage of Ohio rally. Texas pediatricians face investigations from Attorney General and GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton over childhood vaccinations.

International: Airstrikes, artillery hit northern Ethiopia as fighting continues. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, sworn in for a new term, insists Ethiopia must have Red Sea access. ISIS attack kills Iraqi federal policeman near Kirkuk, first since U.S. withdrawal. Russian bombs kill seven, injure over 60 in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia. Russia says Ukrainian drones struck Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, killing one. Ukraine blames Russian drones for sinking of grain ship in Romanian waters; two dead. Kuwait revokes citizenship of 415 more people, including billionaire Mahmoud Haider. Former German intelligence chief arrested on suspicion of buying classified documents for foreign spy agency. Police clash with Kosovo protesters over bid to curb Hague war crimes court. Hundreds flee RSF assaults in Sudan’s Blue Nile region. Cuba says it has “channels of communication” with the U.S. but no negotiations, and is preparing to defend itself. Mexico asks the U.S. for evidence of alleged cross-border gunfire at Coast Guard personnel. Parti Québécois wins Quebec election. French teen loses hand in grenade blast as school protest clashes enter third week. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez calls snap election for Nov. 29.

This is Drop Site Daily, our free news recap We send it Monday – Friday

Yemen

Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia activate Mecca defense pact, will deploy forces to Gulf kingdom against Houthis: Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia agreed Monday to activate “collective deterrence measures: under the Mecca Alliance for Defence after an emergency meeting of their defense and foreign ministers in Riyadh, the first time the pact, agreed to on August 7, has been invoked.
- Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman said the alliance was responding to “the heinous attacks against the Kingdom and holy sites.”
- A separate joint statement published by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said the three would “provide the agreed military forces and capabilities and ensure their rapid deployment” to Saudi Arabia under approved arrangements.
Ansarallah strikes Saudi airport, Aramco refinery: Ansarallah said it struck King Khalid Airport in Riyadh, disrupting air traffic, and an Aramco refinery in Rabigh, claiming to have set it on fire. It says it also hit Abha Airport, the Khamis Mushait airbase and other sites in Asir, Najran, and Jizan.
- The group warned all airlines to stop flying through Saudi airspace, calling it “a theater for our operations,” with the exception of the airspace over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
- It said the attacks were retaliation for 60 Saudi airstrikes and a missile on Sanaa, Al-Jawf, Taiz, Hodeidah, Saada, and Marib over 24 hours, which it said killed civilians. It says 1,576 Saudi strikes have hit Yemen since the escalation began.
- Three people were lightly injured and infrastructure damaged in attacks on King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Jazan and Najran International Airport on Monday evening, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said.
- Ansarallah military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed Tuesday the group struck Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia’s Asir province with a ballistic missile, disrupting air traffic, though Saudi authorities have not confirmed the attack.
Saudi-backed Yemeni forces claim capture of Mocha as coalition expands attacks on Ansarallah: Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces said Tuesday they had retaken the strategic Red Sea port city of Mocha from Ansarallah following fighting south of the Bab al-Mandab strait, while the Saudi-led coalition announced a naval operation against Ansarallah in Hodeidah.
- The coalition separately said it destroyed a ballistic missile launch platform in Sanaa and a storage facility containing 20 ballistic missiles in Saada.
- Control of Mocha could provide government forces with a staging point for further operations along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, though the situation on the ground remains fluid and competing territorial claims have emerged during recent fighting.
- Saudi-backed forces also claim to control Bab al-Mandab, an airport in Dhubab district and much of southwestern Taiz’s Red Sea coastline, while Ansarallah officials say they repelled some advances and recaptured territory.

Iran

Bessent celebrates collective economic punishment of Iranians: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent celebrated the collapse of Iran’s economy, boasting that “Operation Economic Outcast is delivering results”: the rial at record lows, and zero Iranian crude loaded onto tankers last month.
- “The Iranian regime allows its own people to suffer,” Bessent claimed, as U.S. policies punish ordinary Iranian civilians.
- Nurses and teachers are quitting in large numbers because their salaries no longer cover the cost of living, the New York Times reported Monday.
- And the U.S. blockade and sanctions have cut imports of medicine and pharmaceutical raw materials, pushing prices up and leaving pharmacies short of drugs for serious illnesses, the FT reported. Some medicines have tripled in price.
Pezeshkian calls U.S. negotiations “futile”: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday that negotiations with the U.S. had become “futile,” accusing Washington of repeatedly attacking Iran following talks and seeking to bring down the Islamic Republic.
- “Every time we come to the negotiating table, war is immediately imposed upon us,” Pezeshkian said, according to IRNA, adding that the U.S. had attacked Iran three times following negotiations. “This demonstrates that they do not seek dialogue. On the contrary, their goal is to bring down the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Trump defends removal of U.S. bombers from UK base as seventh suspect arrested: President Donald Trump on Monday defended the Pentagon’s decision to remove B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford in the UK following what he described as “some threats,” after previously linking Iran to a security incident near the base.
- “Rather than tempting the enemy … why should we leave them there? So, we moved them around a little bit. Not very far,” Trump said, adding that Washington knows who made the threat and that “they’ve gotten themselves into big problems,” without elaborating.
- UK counterterrorism police separately arrested a 22-year-old British national in Westminster on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts in connection with activity near Fairford, bringing the number of arrests linked to the investigation over the past two weeks to seven.
Trump calls higher gas prices a “small price to pay” for war with Iran: Trump said higher gasoline prices for U.S. consumers were a “small price to pay” for what he described as keeping the U.S. and the world safe, as the war with Iran continues to disrupt energy markets.
- Speaking at a Republican midterm campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, Trump said the price increase caused by the war was “just artificial” and “essentially almost over with,” while repeating that the U.S. would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.
- “They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles or San Diego. This is a very small price to pay,” Trump said.
- He claimed gasoline prices would fall below $1.85 a gallon in “a very short period of time,” potentially before or shortly after the November 3 midterm elections.
Twelve sailors injured in attack on commercial vessel in Strait of Hormuz: Twelve sailors, including 11 Indian nationals, were injured in an attack on the Panama-flagged commercial vessel MT On Peace off Oman in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, India’s Foreign Ministry said.
- The vessel was carrying 19 crew members, including 17 Indians. The injured sailors were evacuated with assistance from Omani authorities and are receiving treatment in Khasab.

Palestine

Killed and wounded in Gaza: Over the past 24 hours, two Palestinians were killed—one in a new Israeli attack and one due to wounds sustained in an earlier attack—and 35 injured across Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
- The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 is now 74,245 killed, with 175,267 injured. Since October 11, 2025, the first full day of the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 1,462 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 5,151, while 836 bodies have been recovered.
Israeli attacks kill three, wound several across Gaza: An Israeli drone strike near the municipal park in central Gaza City killed one Palestinian and wounded another on Tuesday, while several Palestinians were injured in a strike on Al-Wehda Street in the west of the city, WAFA reported. In Khan Younis, an Israeli attack killed two Palestinians, according to Al Jazeera
- Israeli forces also shot and wounded one person in the Karama neighborhood of northwest Gaza City and another near Bir 19, south of the Mawasi area of Khan Younis.
Ben-Gvir joins demolition of Jerusalem apartment building as settlers torch Palestinian home, vehicles across the occupied West Bank:
- East Jerusalem: Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir joined Israeli forces during the demolition of a five-story residential building in Al-Tur containing 10 apartments and housing about 70 Palestinians, mostly women and children, on Tuesday, according to WAFA.
- Nablus: Israeli bulldozers razed agricultural land and uprooted olive trees in Iraq Burin, while blocking several village roads with earth mounds. In Aqraba, settlers torched four Palestinian vehicles and spray-painted racist slogans.
- Ramallah: Settlers set fire to a home housing a family of five in Burqa, causing extensive damage. The same homeowner, a U.S. citizen, had his vehicle damaged and dozens of his olive trees cut down by settlers about a month earlier.
- Salfit: Settlers attempted to set fire to a poultry structure and spray-painted racist slogans on a livestock farm in Farkha. Israeli forces separately raided Salfit city and detained Nihad Al-Naoura, secretary of Fatah’s Salfit branch.
- Hebron: Israeli forces raided Bani Naim, declared the town a closed military zone, searched several homes and converted three into military posts.
UK threatens to expel up to 27 Israeli diplomats over planned closure of East Jerusalem consulate: The UK threatened to expel one Israeli diplomat for every British diplomat forced out of Israel over Israel’s plan to close the UK consulate in occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday, which could mean as many as 27 expulsions, Ynet reported. The Foreign Office declined to comment on “speculation” rather than denying the report.
- Israel threatened to close the consulate this week, as part of its response to the UK’s ban on trade in goods from illegal West Bank settlements and sanctions on British firms aiding settlement construction.
- The British Foreign Office was reportedly advised by former UK attorney general Dominic Grieve that such an action would be illegal, given that the United Nations and most of its members recognize East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory.
111 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza in September: Israeli forces killed 111 Palestinians in Gaza in September, including 23 children, ten women and four elderly people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s monthly report. Israel has killed Palestinians in Gaza every month since the ceasefire began. The deadliest month was July, with 152 killed.

Lebanon

Israeli airstrikes, artillery and gunfire target southern Lebanon amid “ceasefire”: Israeli warplanes carried out strikes on Wadi Al-Salouqi and an area between Bra’shit and Aitaroun in the Bint Jbeil district overnight, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
- Israeli artillery shelled the outskirts of Hadatha and Bra’shit, while Israeli forces opened machine-gun fire toward Bayt Al-Sayyad and the outskirts of Mansouri.

U.S. News

DCCC adds six deep-red districts to “Red to Blue” list, predicts House majority of up to 240 seats: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added six candidates to its “Red to Blue” list Monday, in districts Trump won by an average of 16 points or more in 2024, signalling that the Democratic Party will allocate extra resources, and perhaps fundraising dollars, to these races.
- The six include:
  - Arkansas’s 2nd, where Democrat Chris Jones faces incumbent Rep. French Hill;
  - Colorado’s 3rd, where Democrat Dwayne Romero faces incumbent Rep. Jeff Hurd;
  - Florida’s 27th, where Eliott Rodriguez faces incumbent Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar;
  - New York’s 21st, where Democrat Blake Gendebien faces Republican Anthony Constantino;
  - Nevada’s 2nd, where Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson faces Republican David Flippo;
  - and Tennessee’s 9th, where Democrat Justin J. Pearson faces Republican Brent Taylor.
- DCCC political director Brooke Butler told Politico that “anywhere between 218 and 240 feels very viable” for Democrats’ potential House majority and that more seats could be added, “if gas keeps going and diesel kicks back up.”
Obama to campaign in Detroit with El-Sayed, Benson on Oct. 24: Former President Barack Obama will campaign in Detroit on Saturday, Oct. 24, with Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson and other candidates, the Michigan Democratic Party announced Monday.
- El-Sayed faces Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters, while Benson, the secretary of state, faces Republican Rep. John James in the open governor’s race.
- Obama has made few public stops on the trail this year but previously campaigned in Texas with Senate nominee James Talarico and gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa and appeared in a campaign ad with Iowa Senate nominee Josh Turek. He is also set to headline a Washington-area fundraiser Wednesday for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Soldiers wounded in March Iranian drone strike describe medical failures, red tape, AP reports: Nine U.S. service members wounded in the March 1 Iranian drone strike at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, which killed six troops on the second day of the Iran war, spoke on the record to the Associated Press about what they describe as a medical system that left them fighting for treatment on their own.
- Lt. Col. Arturo Lincón, who suffered shrapnel wounds to his jaw, neck, and spine, including a severed vertebral artery, was sent to barracks and told to seek outpatient appointments after Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany did not admit him. Chief Warrant Officer 4 Rodney Bearman said he and others injured in the attacks were not properly registered as “wounded in combat” due to a coding error. Maj. Stephen Ramsbottom said he waited over four months for MRI results and has “had to build my own case for everything.”
- Lincón, who still has shrapnel near his spinal cord and struggles with dizziness, told the AP that, following the attacks, in which his passport was destroyed, he was issued a temporary substitute and asked to prove his citizenship in the process (he was born in Texas to Mexican parents and graduated from West Point). He was also denied a Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance injury claim.
Supreme Court opens new term with Boulder climate case against Exxon, Suncor: The Supreme Court’s new term began Monday with arguments in Boulder’s lawsuit accusing Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy of deceiving the public about the harms of fossil fuels. Boulder says it is seeking to recover past and future costs of repairs, emergency services and property damage, not to regulate emissions.
- The companies argue that only the federal government has the power to address something as large as climate change. The Trump administration has sided with them in the case.
- Justice Samuel Alito stepped aside a week before argument, after calls for recusal over his stock in Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillips. A 4-4 tie would leave the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling allowing the suit to proceed in place.
Trump signs order allowing the use of untaxed off-road diesel on highways: President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday temporarily allowing red-dyed diesel, normally reserved for farm and industrial vehicles, to be used on highways while deferring the 24.4-cent-per-gallon federal excise tax for the rest of the year, according to a fact sheet released by the White House.
- Diesel prices have surged from $3.76 a gallon before the war in Iran to a record $6.53 on September 22, according to AAA.
- The change could potentially save truckers roughly $150 per fill-up, according to CNN, though experts noted it does nothing to improve the principal cause of rising fuel prices, a global shortage of working refineries.
Trump approves firing squad execution for Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan: Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced Monday on X that War Secretary Pete Hegseth “recommended” and President Trump “approved” death by firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, the convicted terrorist who killed 13 people and wounded 32 in the 2009 Fort Hood attack.
- Parnell said the Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution.
- At least 144 civilian prisoners have been executed by shooting since 1608, according to the AP, the most recent being South Carolina’s Brad Sigmon last year, who chose the method over the electric chair and lethal injection.
DOJ seeks to revoke citizenship of 40 naturalized Americans in largest denaturalization push in recent history: The Justice Department is moving to revoke the citizenship of 40 foreign-born Americans it accuses of lying about or omitting criminal histories on their naturalization applications, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced in a press release Monday.
- The government accuses the applicants of having committed crimes including espionage, transporting child pornography, sexual misconduct against a minor, and voluntary manslaughter.
- The cases far exceed the average of 15 a year under previous administrations. DOJ announced that it would target as many as 300 people for possible denaturalization in April.
Border agents raid Arizona protest camp, fell centuries-old cottonwood for Trump’s border wall: More than 50 Customs and Border Protection agents raided an activist camp in Lochiel, Arizona, on Monday, ending a 70-day protest of a potential tree demolition. Following the raid, an excavator knocked down the tree, a 150-to-250-year-old cottonwood, known as the “grandmother tree,” that stood in the path of President Donald Trump’s $46.5 billion border wall expansion.
- Activists told the Washington Post that agents dragged, kicked, and knelt on protesters during a sunrise prayer ceremony, with about 10 arrested and another 10 cited.
Chicago woman shot five times by Border Patrol agent sues federal government: Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman shot five times by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum, sued the federal government Monday for false arrest and imprisonment, malicious prosecution, emotional distress, and negligence, with her attorneys saying an independent crime scene analysis shows the agent shot her as she turned her car away from him.
- Shortly after the shooting, DHS called Martinez a “domestic terrorist” and charged her, but the charges were later dropped. Exum was later placed on “administrative leave,” the department noted, “consistent with policy.”
- Martinez said she was prepared to let the matter go after charges against her were dropped, until federal agents killed two people in Minneapolis. “What’s happening is not normal,” she added.
Trump says New York Times, other outlets should be “arrested” over coverage of Ohio rally: President Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday that the New York Times and “many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country,” after Times correspondent Katie Rogers reported that “several areas of an upper deck were empty” by the end of his Saturday rally at Butler High School in Vandalia, Ohio. Trump disputed the paper’s claims about attendance, saying that the arena was “totally MAXED OUT” and claiming thousands were turned away at the doors.
Texas pediatricians face Paxton investigations over childhood vaccinations: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee, launched a statewide investigation accusing doctors, drug companies and insurers of conspiring to push parents into vaccinating children, with a New York Times report on Monday highlighting the case of “Dr. Rachel,” a central Texas pediatrician of 20 years who says responding to that investigation has cost her nearly $15,000 in legal fees and prompted her to reconsider her career.
- A December letter from the AG’s office demanded 10 years of vaccine purchase records and her practice’s vaccine policy, and said citing the CDC schedule would not suffice. In August, Paxton opened a separate probe of the American Academy of Pediatrics for “deceptively promoting childhood vaccines for financial gain.” Pediatricians reject the profit motive as ludicrous, noting they pay for vaccines upfront and that nearly half of children’s vaccines are covered by the federal Vaccines for Children program.
- Texas kindergarten measles and polio vaccine coverage has fallen to about 93 percent from nearly 97 percent in 2019.

📥 Have a tip on Capitol Hill? Email DC Correspondent Julian Andreone at Julian@dropsitenews.com

Other International News

Airstrikes, artillery hit northern Ethiopia as fighting continues after fall of Mekelle: Airstrikes killed at least 17 people overnight into Monday in Tigray, nine in Adwa, and eight in Sheraro, according to a humanitarian bulletin cited by Reuters, which could not confirm the reports or who launched the strikes. Government forces and fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front also exchanged heavy artillery fire near the Tekeze River close to Mai Tsebri on Monday.
- In Mekelle, which Tigrayan forces left without a fight, residents said that shops were reopening and that phone and internet access was returning after a week-long disruption.
Abiy, sworn in for a new term, insists Ethiopia must have Red Sea access: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told Parliament Monday, as he was sworn in for another five-year term, that Ethiopia will work to secure a Red Sea port, saying “based on the principle of give and take, we will work diligently to ensure that Ethiopia has an outlet to the sea” and calling access critical to the country’s “civilization.”
- His remarks came a day after Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan, and Somalia met in New Alamein and declared that governance of the Red Sea is the “exclusive responsibility” of the region’s coastal states. Eritrea has accused Ethiopia of seeking to reassert control over its coast, which it lost when Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993.
ISIS attack kills Iraqi federal policeman near Kirkuk, first since U.S. withdrawal: At least one Iraqi federal policeman was killed and four wounded Monday when Islamic State militants attacked a federal police regiment near Hawija, about 70 km southwest of Kirkuk, using semi-automatic machine guns and sniper fire, two security sources told Reuters. No group has claimed responsibility, but security and army sources said ISIS militants, who retain sleeper cells in the area, were involved.
- It is the first reported ISIS assault on Iraqi security forces since the U.S. completed its military withdrawal from Iraq on Sept. 30.
Russian bombs kill seven, injure over 60 in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia: Three Russian bombs struck different areas of the northeastern Ukrainian city Kharkiv on Monday, killing six people and injuring 59, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov. Three of those injured in Monday’s attacks on Kharkiv were children.
- Elsewhere on Monday, a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia, injuring three people who were trapped on the ninth floor, according to that region’s governor.
- Russian airstrikes also killed one person in Sloviansk in the Donetsk region.
Russia says Ukrainian drones struck Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, killing one: Ukrainian drones struck a laboratory building and a radioactive waste processing facility at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant overnight on Monday, killing a driver delivering food to plant workers, according to Alexei Likhachev, head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, who said there was no threat to nuclear safety.
Ukraine blames Russian drones for sinking of grain ship in Romanian waters; two dead: Romania’s Interior Ministry said two people were killed and 11 rescued after a grain ship caught fire and sank Monday in Romania’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea; the ministry did not identify the cause of the fire. Azerbaijani and Indian nationals were reportedly aboard.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia for the fire, condemning in a Monday post on X the “horrific strike by two Russian drones on a civilian vessel in neutral waters carrying corn and owned by Turkiye.”
Kuwait revokes citizenship of 415 more people, including billionaire Mahmoud Haider: Kuwait issued six decrees published in its official gazette stripping 415 people of citizenship, including billionaire businessman Mahmoud Haider, along with dependents who obtained nationality through those whose citizenship was revoked.
- The Gulf state announced a citizenship review campaign in 2024, targeting fraudulent claims, including those involving individuals reporting dual nationality or those who acquired it through marriage. It has expanded this year to politicians, footballers, and musicians, including 1982 World Cup goalkeeper Ahmed al-Tarabulsi and singer Abdulmohsen Al Muhanna. Rights groups estimate at least 50,000 people have lost citizenship since 2024.
Former German intelligence chief arrested on suspicion of buying classified documents for foreign spy agency: Former Federal Intelligence Service chief August Hanning was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of paying a former office manager at the agency for roughly 2,000 documents, including classified material and senior intelligence briefings prepared for the chancellery, and using them to draft an analysis for an officer of an unnamed foreign intelligence service, according to German federal prosecutors.
- Prosecutors allege the arrangement began in 2010, five years after Hanning left the agency, and that he also shared political information with a representative of a second foreign intelligence service. The office manager, identified only as Manfred D., was also arrested.
- The case does not involve Russia, according to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Police clash with Kosovo protesters over bid to curb Hague war crimes court: Police used tear gas and water cannons Monday evening against several hundred protesters, including veterans and supporters of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, outside Parliament in Pristina after lawmakers adjourned without passing amendments limiting the powers of the controversial Kosovo Specialist Chambers court. Twelve people were injured, including 11 civilians, according to a Pristina hospital emergency director.
- The amendments, which passed a first reading earlier Monday, would cap the court’s sentences at 15 years, allow these to be served in Kosovo and permit appeals to Kosovo’s Supreme Court. They were forwarded by the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and halted by Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s governing Vetevendosje party.
- The court remains controversial in Kosovo, where the KLA, which the court was created to prosecute, is held in high esteem by many in the country’s Albanian population after its fight against the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav government during Kosovo’s 1998-1999 war.
Hundreds flee RSF assaults in Sudan’s Blue Nile region: Hundreds of residents have fled the localities of Jabal Al-Nimr and Minza in Sudan’s southeastern Blue Nile region after recent Rapid Support Forces attacks, the region’s Humanitarian Aid Commission said on Monday. Most are heading toward the town of Al-Azaza and a settlement known as Village 6, raising concerns over civilian protection and shortages of essential supplies.
Cuba says it has “channels of communication” with the U.S. but no negotiations, and is preparing to defend itself: Cuba’s chargé d’affaires in Washington, Lianys Torres Rivera, told Reuters on Monday that Havana and Washington maintain “channels of communication”—including meetings, phone calls, and WhatsApp messages—but are not in formal negotiations and have made no progress toward restarting official talks.
- Rivera’s remarks contradict President Donald Trump’s claim last month at the UN that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was “deep into negotiations” with Havana.
- Torres Rivera said Cuba remains open to “respectful” dialogue with the U.S. but is “not naive” about Trump’s threats and is expanding its defense preparations, saying “we are increasing our capabilities now more than ever before.”
- She also noted that Cuba’s “red line” remains changes to its political system.
Mexico asks U.S. for evidence of alleged cross-border gunfire at Coast Guard personnel: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday her government has requested evidence from U.S. authorities about allegations that shots were fired from the Mexican side of the border at U.S. personnel, saying “we asked for all the evidence because we have no evidence” and that no National Guard, Army, or Navy personnel detected shots fired from Mexican territory toward the U.S.
- The comments came a day after U.S. Ambassador Ronald Johnson said on X that “shots were fired at U.S. Coast Guard personnel” in an area where Tamaulipas meets Texas.
- The incident follows Mexico’s announcement of “Operation Mirror” on Sunday evening, a joint border security effort deploying 500 troops, helicopters, drones and anti-drone equipment along the frontier. Despite deepening security collaboration, Sheinbaum has repeatedly denied that her government would allow a U.S. military intervention on Mexican soil.
Parti Québécois wins Quebec election, complicating Carney’s unity push against Trump: The separatist party Parti Québécois, led by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, won Quebec’s election Monday, according to early projections from public broadcaster Radio-Canada, though it remains too early to say whether the party secured a majority in the province’s legislature.
- The result, widely expected before the vote, will jettison the center-right Coalition Avenir Québec government, which has been in office since 2018.
- St-Pierre Plamondon has promised a referendum on leaving Canada, but only once Trump is out of the White House. Previous independence referendums failed in 1980 and 1995, and current polling puts support for a separation at around 30 percent.
- St-Pierre Plamondon pledged to work with Carney when it suits the province’s interests; his party notably diverges from Ottawa in its calls to reduce immigration, cut Quebec’s ties to the British monarchy, and efforts to block a proposed Quebec-Ontario high-speed rail line.
French teen loses hand in grenade blast as school protest clashes enter third week: A 15-year-old boy lost a hand Monday near a high school in Lens after an explosion that unverified police reports said involved a stun grenade. He is hospitalized in Lille, and his life is not in danger, according to Pas-de-Calais’s regional prefect.
- Police internal affairs is now handling six investigations into serious injuries during the protests; the country’s Education Minister, Edouard Geffray, said Monday that 190 students have been injured since the unrest began. His ministry also noted that 589 schools were disrupted Monday, down from 735 Friday, and about 5,000 people, mostly teenagers, have been arrested since Sept. 28.
- Amnesty International France criticized the government’s use of “disproportionate force” against minors during the weeks-long protests.
Spain’s Sánchez calls snap election for Nov. 29 after Parliament rejects housing relief measures: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced in a televised address on Monday that Spain will hold a general election on Nov. 29, after Parliament rejected housing relief measures proposed by his minority government.
- The announcement follows weeks of nationwide housing protests, including a Saturday demonstration in Madrid that the government said drew more than 70,000 people, motivated in part by the televised eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid. Average rents in Spain have nearly doubled over the past decade, according to data from the Spanish real estate firm Idealista.
- The conservative People’s Party, led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo and backed by the far-right Vox party, appears poised to win in November, according to early polling. If it does, it would become the first far-right party to control the country’s central government since the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. Sánchez has never won an outright majority but has held power for eight years across three terms.

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The Gaza genocide permanently diminished the power of pro-Israel propaganda

2026-10-06T13:30:00Z

Since October 7 and the Gaza genocide, U.S. opinions on Israel and Palestine have drastically shifted. The power of Zionist propaganda has been permanently weakened, and the U.S.-Israel relationship is in a more precarious position than ever before.

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2026-10-06T13:00:00Z

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It Doesn’t Matter How Much Oil Gets Through The Strait

2026-10-06T11:51:06Z

The White Empire is squeezing oil out of dire straits, but at what cost? As Matt Burnell says, "You could be getting 100% of the pre-war flow out of the Persian Gulf and it could not possibly matter less for the price of crude because as long as ships are consistently getting hit, the baked in cost to move that oil is going to be astronomical."

So forget the bullshitting, the cost of shipping is ≈ 40% more on freight and insurance alone. That's before accounting for troll tolls and 'unplanned capital depreciation' via explosion. That 40% is just table stakes, the other part is you need a new table. Shippers are paying at least $40 on top of a $100 barrel to still get their shit blown up, when they could just pay $1 to Iran and... not. What do you think is sustainable? How do you think this plays out?

The White Equation

Screenshot of a webpage I can't access from Poten Tanker Opinion

When we talk about cost, it is important to account for it correctly, that is, twice. Double-entry book-keeping is the double helix of corporations, it is their DNA, it's how they work. So when you read the news, remember that every debit has a credit, and every cost is someone else's profit center. Looking at it this way, it's not like 'boohoo, costs went up 1,000%', it's 'woo-hoo, revenue went up 1,000%'. You have to look at things this way (seeing double), because that's how corporations do (the voodoo, they do do, so well).

When you see the news meant for human rubes, you have to read it backwards, remember this. If the news says 'costs went up' read it as 'revenue went up' and you'll get the jist. Thus, while human populations are being reduced to wearing a barrel, corporations sold us the barrel and take everything else, to rent back to us with interest. They're making money six-fingered hand-over-fist. War is a racket, as some dude said, and the White Empire are racketeers par excellence.

Someone is making at least 40% more on each bloody barrel sold, more on the blood spilt to lubricate it. Someone (something, really) gets to recapitalize the destroyed capital, and speculators can make 4,000% just vibing with the President. American oil companies profit from higher prices, Greek shipping companies profit from higher freight, and London insurers profit from higher rates. And stock-jobbing swindlers make money on the volatility. The nationalities of these corporations are irrelevant, it's all one White Empire ruled by Corporate AI and has been since 1602 at least.

An Important Digression You Can Skip

For background, we have been ruled be an evil White Empire for over 500 years and it hides in the background, like the white of this page. Since at least the first IPO in 1602, the White Empire has ruled by bloodless Corporate AI given continents to devour (there is little point debating the intelligence of a tiger when you're in its mouth). This Corporate AI has divided (and conquered) humans into White and non-White to multiply their profit margins across a planetary energy gradient (Whites are naturally solar poor, hence the pastiness).

Viewed this way – bloodlessly, with only double-entry as DNA – what are all the loses we bemoan in the news? Nothing. All that matters is the profit rate, which is going great. Given the racism inherent in White Empire (nothing personal, strictly business), they give negative shits about Slavs killing Slavs or Semites killing Semites. Slavs and Arabs are beneath human to them, so nothing lost and much gained. It's not blood for oil as much as blood AND oil, ie two cakes. And they don't care about 'White' citizens either, as they periodically blow the whole world up in what they call World Wars™ when it affects White people. I argue that we've been in World War III since 2001 if you're not racist about it.

When feeding on colonial possessions cannot satisify the profit, ie metabolic rate of Corporate AI, it starts the most capital intensive and expensive racket there is. Industrial warfare. Which is what's happening. Remember that every second and third order cost (petrol/diesel, food/everything) is a profit for some corporation. In the face of the declining rate of profit, there's always war, to make it incline quite vertically. Which is happening in so many graphs we've seen.

It's all there in the double-entry accounting. They're not complaining in the press about costs going up. They're bragging. Just follow the money, which is the only ideology these cruel algorithms have. As Frank Zappa said, politics is just the marketing department of the military-industrial complex.

Once you see things this way, not like a state but like a corporate, you can see the play. The White Empire does not care about press-ganging and killing Ukrainian men or blowing up West Asian infrastructure to get there. The ruling class is not human at all, they just have human spokespeople replaced like so many wheels and spokes. Human 'losses' do not even register on their books, they live and die by the market, and the market's on coke. If the slaves or energy slaves (oil) die or fall overboard, who cares? They're not inhuman, they just not human at all.

Dutch Shell doesn't care about dead people any more than the Dutch VoC did. They follow no prophet but profit and that's going gang-busters. Yes it's killing the host, but who cares? From Amsterdam to London to Washington, the corporations have always found a new host. They won't this time (inshallah), but how would they know that? They're just algorithms. If it ain't broke, go for broke.

OK, Let's Jump Back In There

Understood this way, with crazy AI already running the place, things start to make a bit more sense, don't they? I'll repeat it because few say it, the White Empire is causing this crisis, not trying to solve it in any way. The Empire blew up the Nordstream pipeline and is attacking Russian oil infrastructure, they're taking that supply offline on purpose. That's not Ukraine, Ukraine is not a real country. Then they attacked Iran and double-blockaded the Strait of Hormuz themselves, without even bothering to go through 'Israel' (also a fake country). The point of a system is what it does, and what the White Empire is doing is a classic white mafia (PE) play, known as a bust-out in the less-white mafia.

In a bust-out (or leveraged buyout), you take over a restaurant or shop, run up bills on the joint's credit, and then light a match and collect the insurance money. Which is precisely what they're doing with the petrodollar. They are not losing money, no no, flip the accounts and see. Don't make the mistake of identifying the USA as a human government (never has been, literally enslaved people) and not just the latest host of Corporate AI devouring continents since the 1500s at least. They are making money hand over six-fingered fist and simply do not give a shit. All the news about this being bad is one more grift. They're loving it.

Now That You're Insane, Maybe Things Make Sense

Viewed this way, let's look at the oil prices above, which people are wringing human hands over fruitlessly. Oil was $60 a barrel before the Iran War (sorry, but American War hardly narrows it down). This is stupid but these prices are stupid, let's napking it out. If we add 40% in direct costs, that'd give us an expected price of $84. And indeed, that's the roughly the price of WTI ($89). But wait, WTI stands for West Texas, which is in pre-genocided America and which should be immune to this. Wrong, wrong. Oil is a literally liquid commodity, so it rises to match.

Take price plus 40% as the base rate, without the other costs of actually moving a barrel of Oman. For example, rumors and indeed reports abound that shippers are paying a troll toll to Iran under the table. Kpler is a bit of an op, but their head of policy Michelle Brohard said as much. She estimated that shippers were tipping Iran 10-20% so they wouldn't tip shit over. It's funny because this is more than they'd pay if America just left everything alone.

Some lady from Kpler, which is a bit of an op, nonetheless saying that Iran is getting paid for transits anyways

This is backed up by a US Treasury press release (via Brett Erickson) saying they're sanctioning some bank because, "Since June of this year, OFAC-designated Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority has used BitBank to transfer payments it received to the Iranian regime." But sanction one bank another one will just appear, either pay the troll toll or pay more to play whack-a-mole, that's the game. Factoring these added costs in, as much as these dumb markets can process information, DME Oman is trading at $112.

This is still low because, as the hero of Batman, Bain, says while capping a CIA agent, the fire rises. Because for the ships that don't pay the troll toll, there's the troll.

The Empire keeps trying to push its vassals through the strait, and Iran keeps sending them back or otherwise waylays them. The Empire gets some squeakers through, sure, but who knows if those paid Iran anyways? Meanwhile, other ships get blown up on the daily, which is not a sustainable. These ships cost millions if not jabillions of dollars and take years to fix or replace. And on the ground, where it's just hanging around, oil infrastructure is hit on the weekly. When they fix it it just gets hit again (shout-out Yemen).

There isn't much to say for the idiot Gulf Apostates. They're like the ruler that asked the sage Vishvamitra to get to heaven early, but Indra kicked him out immediately. Then the king fell back to earth, except upside down, and Vish asked what are you doing here? and sent him back up again. Vish kept pinging the hapless king back and forth, upside down, until the dude cried out for what he had before, just a normal life on earth, right side up. But he never got it. By some accounts he's in his own upside down heaven now, but for our purposes on earth, he's just gone. This is what the Whites are doing to the hapless Arab rulers, anon.

As the CEO of the Arab American Oil Company (Aramco) recently said, "with precious little else the world can turn to, the supply resilience cushion is scarily thin." Amin Nasser said his master's Brent (UK North Sea crude) could have reached $200 per barrel without the Saudi East-West pipeline. But that was blown up once and is getting blown up again. I don't know why people whose job it is to analyze things professional go along with this charade but I suppose, like Upton Sinclair said, that's it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.

The Aramcomprador did acknowledge that, "until Hormuz fully reopens and confidence returns, the crude reality is that pressure at both ends of the barrel will intensify. While the squeeze on crude is serious, refined fuel prices have risen even more sharply." But when and how does that reopen, and what does that mean?

Resolution

The resolution to this problem is very simple. America just leaves. Everybody pays Iran $1 a barrel, which is nothing, and the region proceeds. Iran has said either everyone can sell oil or no one can sell oil, which is reasonable, and that neighbors should work things out with each other, which is just neighborly. This is the position of Yemen, of Iran, of Russia, and of China. Nothing unites them ideologically except sovereignity, which is of course the one thing an empire cannot tolerate, especially a White supremacist one. So it pits neighbor against neighbor, to rule over a ruin. That's what's happening across West Asia (up to the Ukraine) and what they'd like to do to East Asia, with the islands they hold in chains. At this point you have to conclude that the White Empire is the problem because if you remove them the problem disappears.

So that is what we're waiting for. Not for peace talks with warmongers or negotiations with the nedogovorosposobnost. There is no negotiating with these people, they're not even people. Americans are just genocidal oil-thieves from the other side of the world and that's all they're trying to do in West Asia, just a century late and a petrodollar short. The Empire tried to rip Iran and Russia's oil trade off, with the result, as Bain predicted, being "extremely painful... for you." The pressure is building, and Asians are used to suffering. The rest of the world, led by West Asia, are simply waiting for the pressure to build until the wheels fall of the imperial war machine, the Yankees go home, and their final horcrux 'Israel' falls. And the pressure is building.

If you want another graph of things going up and to the right, these are Suezmax (big-ass ship) transit rates not through Hormuz but going anywhere at all. Lloyd's List, not typically known for being hyperbolic, says "Suezmax rates have gone parabolic over the past three days, mirroring the near-vertical trajectory of VLCC rates in mid-September."

Numerous shipping agents are waxing elegiac, with Sparta Commodities saying, "Atlantic freight is repricing violently on real tightness," and Fearnley Securities saying, "Available tonnage is seemingly vacuumed off position lists the second it is marketed." Lloyd's ties it up saying, "Tanker shipping’s “Overton window” — the window of thinkable possibilities — now has an extra zero, at $1m per day." Shipping guys don't usually talk like this, as Jorgen Lian, shipping analyst at DNB Carnegie said, "Our imagination is obviously not imaginative enough, because we’ve been lagging the reality by far." Shipping is, for the global economy, everything, and while the corporations are making record profits, the human world is in deep ship.

But again and again, this is all intentional, insomuch as algorithms incarnated as corporations have intentions. They are driving up the profit rate and destroying capital stocks like they have done in every World War before. And the only way this ends is not negotiation, we already passed our Versailles moment, where Trump signed the dead-letter MOU. This ends with the collapse of the simulation they reverently call 'the economy' which is coming, as the GZA said, immediately if not soon.

OK, actually how though

What the NY Times isn’t saying about the Cornell rape scandal

2026-10-06T04:21:56Z

Below is a screenshot from The New York Times a few days ago with blanket coverage of the 2024 Cornell gang rape. The Times has devoted an enormous amount of resources to cover the story from every angle: How seven Cornell fraternity brothers allegedly participated in the gang rape of “Jane Doe” while she was drugged on ketamine, the failure of the local prosecutor to bring charges against the men, the fallout for New York state politicians, Cornell University’s response that resulted in slap-on-the-wrist punishments for some of the accused, and even the impact on student nightlife.

Amid the wall-to-wall coverage, there is one story the NY Times doesn’t see fit to print. In 2024 Cornell students peacefully protesting the genocide of Gaza were punished far more harshly than the seven fraternity brothers who committed violent sexual assault.

It seems worth noting that two frat boys were punished with writing exercises even though they were on a Snapchat thread stating “Free pussy” as the rape was happening while among those supporting the “Free Palestine” movement at Cornell were two international students who subsequently fled overseas rather than be imprisoned in an ICE gulag but then were told by Cornell University they must return to the U.S. and face ICE imprisonment or their graduate-student funding would be cut off.

But the Times has yet to note it.

This is to be expected, of course. The New York Times took the lead in amplifying Israel’s October 7 rape hoax with its notorious “Screams Without Words” report in December 2023. The Oct. 7 rape hoax was a primary justification for the genocide of Gaza, serving the same purpose as rape hoaxes that led to the pogroms in Tulsa, Rosewood, and the murder of Emmett Till.

I explained how “top US and Israeli officials spread fake rape claims to provide cover for genocide, demonise all Palestinians, convince Israeli society that the brutal war is justified, and … weaponized the #MeToo movement, anti-Semitism and rape denialism to shut down criticism and demands for evidence.”

Remember this when you read the Times selective outrage about Cornell. All the corporate media spread the Oct. 7 rape hoax — as did left media like The Nation. The Times and corporate media outlets also buried credible evidence that Israel was committing systematic sexual violence against Palestinian women and children long before it became undeniable with the horrific Sde Teiman rapes in the “living hell” that is Israel’s “network of torture camps.”

Israel’s use of sexual violence against Palestinian women, girls, men, and boys is baked into its founding. In 1948 Zionist terrorists carried out a campaign of rape, and founding Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion “openly discussed the rape and sexual torture of Palestinian women in his diary entries during 1948.”

The Times can publish 1,000 articles about the Cornell gang rape but they will never explain how sexual violence and rape is central to Western power. When it comes to ruling-class responsibility, it’s not just men. Political figures like Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, and Linda-Thomas Greenfield all enthusiastically supported U.S.-backed conflicts where sexual violence was rampant.

It is positive that this one atrocity at Cornell has come to light. But do not expect the intellectual supporters of genocide at The New York Times to explain the systematic nature of rape by oligarchs nor their impunity.

Never forget that the Times excels at selective memory and outrage in service of colonial plunder, violence, and rape.

Rees-Mogg says he supports the mass-murder of children – and liberals fawn over him

2026-10-05T21:38:12Z

It has been salutary listening to liberals fawn over Britain’s ultimate rightwing nationalist toff, Jacob Rees-Mogg, claiming that in an interview at the weekend he “schooled” Tucker Carlson, the United States’ ultimate rightwing nationalist WASP.

LBC’s James O’Brien, a diehard Remainer, was giddy with excitement over the confrontation. Apparently the Eton-educated, Brexit-cheerleading peer made a fool of Carlson during their hour-long conversation.

But what exactly was Carlson schooled on?

Actually of the two, Rees-Mogg sounded by far the more extreme. Which, I admit, is saying something.

His reasoning was also riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies.

All of this is being intentionally obscured by the establishment media, in both its rightwing and liberal flavours. They want to focus instead on a brief section in which Carlson, a strict isolationist, expresses doubts about whether the UK had a national interest in fighting Nazi Germany.

If that sounds unhinged, wait till you hear what Rees-Mogg has to say in response.

1. Throughout the interview, Rees-Mogg struggles to articulate what meaningful threat he believes Russia poses to the UK. Nonetheless, he is certain that Britain needs to spend far more taxpayers’ money on arming the UK against that threat. He calls for even deeper austerity cuts, stripping out the last vestiges of social spending.

He, of course, wants that money redirected to western weapons industries that have a vested interest in continuing to provoke Russia, China and Iran into forever wars that enrich shareholders. Is it possible Lord Rees-Mogg may be just such a shareholder?

2. Astonishingly, Rees-Mogg maintains that it was “unquestionably” justified for the US to use an atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians.

He rationalises his position, as many people do, by claiming that this horrifying act of mass murder helped to hasten the end of the Second World War and thereby, overall, saved lives – a view that a diminishing number of scholars still support.

It seems far more likely the explosion of two atomic bombs was intended as a decisive demonstration of US military might, at the moment it was formally taking on the mantle of empire from Britain, against an emerging rival in the shape of the Soviet Union.

Notice too that Rees-Mogg thinks it was legitimate for the US to mass-murder Japanese civilians in 1945 in its geopolitical interests: as a method to speed up the end of the Second World War. But he absolutely rejects Moscow’s right to use a nuclear bomb against Ukraine in its geopolitical interests. Instead he urges Nato to continue provoking Russia into greater militarism by helping Ukraine to bleed its neighbour on the battlefield.

Might Russia not reasonably think, employing Rees-Mogg’s logic, that the use of a nuclear missile would similarly hasten the end of the West’s proxy war in Ukraine and thereby, overall, save lives?

3. Rees-Mogg and Carlson clash over the issue of murdering children and using nuclear bombs against civilians. Rees-Mogg is in favour of massacring civilians in any situation he deems to be “total war”, a concept he appears unable to define, while Carlson is strictly against killing innocents.

But, it seems, Carlson is the extremist.

Notice here that Rees-Mogg’s argument implicitly launders recent rationalisations by western establishments for supporting Israel as it has carried out the genocidal slaughter of Palestinian children in Gaza.

4. Rees-Mogg is deeply opposed to placing restraints on the behaviour of the nation state. This is why, he says, he supports Nato – because it is what he calls a “voluntary” supra-national body. He contrasts Nato with other international institutions like the European Union and the International Criminal Court (ICC), both of which he seems to oppose. The ICC is the main international body for determining and upholding international law.

If you side with Rees-Mogg on this point, you effectively favour a return to the law of the jungle, where big states can beat up on small states. Which is strange because Rees-Mogg spends most of the interview being indignant that a nuclear-armed big state, Russia, has got away with invading a weaker neighbour, Ukraine.

5. Carlson points to an obvious contradiction in Rees-Mogg’s position. The British peer declares sovereignty to be the supreme moral purpose of the nation state, but is then satisfied for the UK to serve as a US vassal state, obediently taking orders from Washington.

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Carlson presents the UK as an occupied territory under the thumb of the US and its military since 1945. Anyone not in thrall to our establishment political and media class might suspect he has a point.

6. Carlson makes the reasonable observation that – despite Rees-Mogg endlessly justifying the killing fields in Ukraine on the basis that Ukrainian national sovereignty must be protected at all costs, even if it results in nuclear confrontation – the US is, in fact, no more interested in protecting Ukrainian national sovereignty than Russia is.

Both want it to see Ukraine turned into a vassal state: the US expressly to repurpose it as an offensive forward base for Nato on Russia’s doorstep; and Moscow to prevent just such a development and secure what it regards as its back yard (in the same way that Washington regards Central and Latin America as its back yard).

7. Carlson points out that the UK and Rees-Mogg’s support for intensifying the proxy war in Ukraine – supposedly as a deterrence against any supposed expansionist ambitions from Russia – makes little sense. Endlessly upping the military stakes for Russia in Ukraine, and helping Kyiv to take the war directly into Russian territory, is simply driving Moscow into using more force.

Russia has both hypersonic and nuclear weapons that can quickly defeat Kyiv if it chooses to use them. The West would have no meaningful response – apart from using its own nuclear weapons.

If Nato keeps pushing Moscow into a corner – and continues blocking any kind of negotiation that might lead towards a deal, as it has done from the outset of the invasion – Russia is likely to take the war to “another level”, as Rees-Mogg calls it.

The logic of the West’s position is ultimately towards nuclear confrontation. And there is something profoundly dishonest, as Carlson keeps pointing out in their interview, in refusing to acknowledge that fact. Nato is lighting a box of matches right next to a fuse connected to a nuclear bomb.

Carlson keeps pointing to this elephant in the room, while Rees-Mogg (and western liberals behind him) keep desperately trying to ignore it.

U.S. attorneys name South Korean intelligence ‘handlers’ of indicted former CIA analyst

2026-10-05T18:49:35Z

The indicted foreign policy columnist and former CIA analyst interviewing with PBS Frontline in September 2013.

A memorandum filed last week by U.S. Attorney James M. McDonald quietly unmasked three former senior officers of South Korea’s foreign intelligence service who served as successive ‘handlers’ for the think-tank staffer and former CIA analyst Sue Mi Terry for nearly a decade. The filing comes more than two years after Ms. Terry was arrested for allegedly violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) through her interactions with the South Korean foreign intelligence service officers, including through accepting $9,245 in luxury coats and handbags.

Much of the media attention to the case has focused on Ms. Terry’s husband, the prominent foreign policy columnist Max Boot, with whom she has co-authored an editorial on South Korea in The Washington Post. A transcript from a March 9, 2023 conversation between Terry and South Korean intelligence station chief Hyungju Roh was included in an exhibit of last week’s filing.

South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) station chief Hyungju Roh [ROH] speaking with Wilson Center staffer Sue Mi Terry [ST] on March 9, 2023 about what is clearly Terry’s husband, Max Boot, and his 2018 book “The Road Not Taken.” The segment is found on page 58 of the below-published filing Document 133 from USA v. Sue Mi Terry.

A final pretrial conference for the case is scheduled for October 20 in the Southern District of New York, with a jury trial set to begin at 9:45 a.m. on October 27.

Jin Joo Koo, Seungwoo Chun, and Hyungju Roh operated in the United States on behalf of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) under cover as ministers in South Korean diplomatic missions, as corroborated by diplomatic lists published by the United Nations and U.S. State Department. A registry of diplomatic mission staff published by the United Nations in March 2014 lists a Mr. Jin Joo Koo as a Minister for the South Korean mission in New York; U.S. State Department diplomatic lists from Spring and Fall 2020 likewise document the transition of the cover position as minister counselor in the ROK Embassy to the U.S. from acting NIS station chief Seungwoo Chun to his successor, NIS station chief Hyungju Roh.

(Such minister-counselor positions in diplomatic missions are regularly used by many countries as cover for their foreign intelligence services’ chief spy in each country.)

Mr. Chun did not respond to a request for comment, but a comporting history of his nominal diplomatic positions is displayed on his public LinkedIn profile, alongside his resume and a request in March for potential employment opportunities. Mr. Koo was also reported to have visited a Mennonite facility in Pennsylvania in his capacity as a diplomatic representative to the United Nations in 2015.

The U.S. Attorney’s September 28 filing leveraged knowledge of the Google Search queries conducted by Roh during his tenure as NIS station chief as purported evidence of his intention to help Ms. Terry evade the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). “Roh’s Google searches reveal that, in December 2018, he visited the Department of Justice’s FARA page and Googled ‘fara act,’ demonstrating his knowledge of the existence of the FARA regime and his willfulness in subsequently evading it with the defendant,” argued U.S. Attorney McDonald.

Document 133 from USA v. Sue Mi Terry in the Southern District of New York

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A September 28, 2026 filing from U.S. Attorney James M. McDonald which names a succession of three South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) "handlers" for the former CIA analyst Sue Mi Terry.

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A segment from page 16 of Document 133 in USA v. Sue Mi Terry, “identifying” Jin J. Koo as the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) officer previously referred to as “NIS Handler-1.”

A segment from pages 16-17 of Document 133 in USA v. Sue Mi Terry, naming Seungwoo Chun as “NIS Handler-2.”

A footnote on page 5 of Document 133 in USA v. Sue Mi Terry, naming Hyungju Roh as “NIS Handler-3.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute jointly intervened on Terry’s behalf in March of last year, arguing that her prosecution is an overly broad interpretation of foreign agent activity which threatens the First Amendment. “These onerous requirements would likely have a profound chilling effect on the speech of entities subject to FARA’s obligations, raising serious First Amendment concerns, if FARA were construed broadly,” argued the filing.

Ms. Terry’s team has argued that her interactions with officers from foreign intelligence services are commonplace amongst her peers at think-tanks, stating in a September 28 filing that, “Dr. Terry spent years at think tanks, like the Center for Strategic and International Studies (‘CSIS’) and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (‘Wilson Center’), and firms like Macro Advisory Partners, working alongside colleagues engaged in similar conduct.”

Terry’s legal team has also recently opposed the U.S. Government’s usage of former CIA counterintelligence chief James M. Olson as an expert witness, citing several paragraphs from his 2019 book “To Catch a Spy” as alleged evidence of his bias against the CIA hiring women and minorities. The statements of concern are compiled within Exhibit C of a filing from her legal team on September 28, including Mr. Olson writing of his “fear that affirmative action has in some cases resulted in lowering of standards.”

Another cited section from Olson’s book asserted that the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) employee Larry Wu-Tai Chin was able to covertly spy for the Chinese Communist Party because, “Some nationalities, we know, are particularly difficult polygraph subjects because of different cultural attitudes toward lying and personal responsibility.”

Document 134 from USA v. Sue Mi Terry

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A September 28, 2026 filing from Sue Mi Terry's legal defense, which includes opposition to former CIA counterintelligence chief James Olson being used as an expert witness.

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Olson’s decidedly partisan political positions have previously been covered by this publication, particularly in regards to his central role in the exorcism of a former Planned Parenthood facility in Bryan, Texas conducted by the anti-abortion nonprofit 40 Days for Life after acquiring the building in 2014.

“You were here actually when we had the exorcism done on the building,” stated 40 Days for Life president Shawn Carney during an interview with Olson published in April 2021. “It was just you, me, and the priest, and we made the priest go in first,” continued Carney. “You could still feel the evil in the building at that point,” replied Olson.

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Updated on October 6, 2025 to include reference to transcript between Terry and Roh.

Northern Irish Racism is Loyalism’s Revival

2026-10-05T18:43:48Z

Things escalate rapidly in Belfast. But in the era of social media outrage, any politically volatile image will tear through the city in mere minutes. On June 9, a video spread of an alleged asylum seeker from Sudan standing over a white man bearing the wounds of a knife attack that ultimately left him blind in one eye. Within hours, anti-immigrant rallies appeared around the North of Ireland, followed by marches that evolved into hostile riots where immigrant homes and businesses were attacked and set on fire.¹ Several homes were ultimately burned to the ground, and around five dozen fire-related incidents were reported to emergency services.²

Media outlets roundly admitted that these riots were overwhelmingly in Loyalist neighborhoods like Shankill Road, East Belfast, and Tigers Bay. Photos of the demonstrations show a sea of Union Jacks, a flag that in Belfast is used by the Loyalist political community. There were no republican tricolors in sight. The rally fliers, created and spread at lightning speed, were peculiar, including calls for businesses in the surrounding neighborhoods to close.³ This is how Loyalist paramilitaries direct—or coerce—communities under their ostensible control. The same areas where immigrants were forced from their homes and a bus was set ablaze are covered in murals celebrating balaclava-masked members of the Protestant British ultranationalists of the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and Ulster Volunteer Force. These are assailants who earned their stripes by murdering Catholics (who mostly see themselves as Irish rather than subjects of the British crown).

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208. Vote Blue no Matter Who? Running as a Socialist in 2026 w/ Greg Levy

2026-10-05T17:56:00Z

Watch or listen add free at RFEmedia.com or at https://www.patreon.com/c/ColonialOutcasts

We have one month left of Midterms Mania, so the establishment "vote blue no matter who crowd" is out in force to vote shame you and defang revolutionary energy. How do we cope and how do we respond?

Today we are joined by Greg Levy, socialist candidate for the Ohio senate race. You can check out Greg’s campaign here!

https://www.greg4senate.com/

https://www.instagram.com/greglevy4senate/?hl=en

APO9299875065.mp3 (1:10:17, 65MB)

‘A race against time’: Israel’s settlement drive is rapidly transforming Jenin

2026-10-05T16:41:34Z

New outposts, roads, and military bases are carving up Palestinian communities in an area that saw little settlement activity for two decades.

The post ‘A race against time’: Israel’s settlement drive is rapidly transforming Jenin appeared first on +972 Magazine.

CIA Report Warns Israel Could Head Toward Civil War, Total Collapse

2026-10-05T16:30:47Z

As a reader-funded independent news outlet, we operate free from the influence of governments, advertisers, and corporate backers. This is essential to our mission: to report on what matters most, beholden only to the truth. In that spirit, we made a commitment to ensure that our journalism is free for everyone, not locked behind a paywall. But that means we rely on the voluntary support of our community of readers. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our work today.

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An Israeli soldier stands guard as young men gathered during a demonstration by Ultra-Orthodox Jews against Israel's military draft on June 17, 2026 outside the Beit Lid military base in Kfar Yona, Israel. Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images.

This article is being co-published with Capital & Empire.

Israel is at risk of civil war or state collapse, a classified CIA assessment warns, as years of genocide in Gaza and war in Lebanon and Iran deepen political, economic, and social fractures within the country.

The August report, titled “Fracture From Within,” was compiled by experts in the CIA’s Red Cell, according to two U.S. sources who described the contents of the report to Drop Site News. The Red Cell, which is the unit responsible for providing “alternative analysis” within the agency, produced the assessment through a combination of open source information and U.S. intelligence. The assessment appears to refer only to Israel’s Jewish citizens and does not consider its Palestinian citizens, who make up approximately 20% of Israel’s population and who live under various forms of discrimination that Amnesty International and other human rights groups have labelled as part of a broader system of apartheid. The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.

CIA experts pointed to a volatile mix of pressures converging ahead of Israel’s elections on October 27: economic crisis and soaring military spending; heavily armed veterans returning from prolonged combat, many carrying serious psychological trauma; growing fury over ultra-Orthodox men who are exempt from military service; escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank; and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fighting to hold onto power and igniting a constitutional crisis.

The CIA’s “red teams” are tasked with developing analysis and ideas that challenge prevailing assumptions and expose groupthink or blind spots that can take hold within the intelligence apparatus. “The writers of this are Israel experts,” a source in the intelligence community noted, “this isn’t a fantastical what if—with the upcoming election and the fissures in Israel we should take seriously their conclusion that Israel is one spark away from real internal conflict.”

One of the deepest fractures in Israeli politics has emerged not over opposition to the country’s war crimes—but over who is expected to fight and who is exempt. Ultra-Orthodox men have historically received broad exemptions from military service while continuing to receive state benefits, an arrangement that has become increasingly contentious amid repeated reserve mobilizations. Their collective refusal to serve is not rooted in opposition to Israel’s wars, as ultra-Orthodox leaders argue that military service threatens religious life and their obligation to Torah study. But after years in which reservists have been repeatedly called away from their jobs and families, the exemption has become a potent source of resentment in Israeli society. Households have also been absorbing the costs of Israel’s belligerent policies. Food prices have reached record highs, with the cost of food—including fresh fruit and vegetables—rising 9.5 percent over the past two years, deepening an already severe cost-of-living crisis after years of war.

Yet much of the opposition to Netanyahu is not opposition to Israel’s brutality against Palestinians, but anger over how he has managed it. The major anti-Netanyahu Zionist parties are themselves divided over leadership and coalition strategy, while a central line of attack against Netanyahu has been his responsibility for the October 7 security failure. Recent polling has shown both the Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu blocs struggling to reach the 61 seats required to govern.

The sources warned that the combination of political fracture and a growing population of heavily armed, traumatized veterans has historical precedents. “Famously the Freikorps of Germany were PTSD-addled veterans with weapons and bloodthirst,” he said. “I’m not saying Israel post Gaza is Germany post-WWI but there are certainly aspects of this that ring similar to me.”

Israel is also confronting growing isolation abroad, including an erosion of support in the United States that Israeli officials themselves have privately treated as a long-term threat. The August report pointed to Israel increasingly becoming a pariah state as a factor that could lead to state breakdown.

According to another CIA assessment Capital & Empire reported in July, Israeli officials believe the American political consensus underpinning the alliance is breaking down and that continued reliance on billions of dollars in direct U.S. military aid may eventually become politically untenable. Their response has been to seek deeper integration into the American military, intelligence, and defense establishment—ties that would be harder for future governments to unwind. By this spring, 60% of Americans viewed Israel unfavorably, up from 53% a year earlier, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

That deterioration of support is increasingly visible inside the U.S. national security establishment, as well. “The intelligence community, like America, like the military, like everywhere, is growing frustrated with the real and political capital that’s spent on propping up Israel,” the source said. “As we’re moving forward with further integrating our military-industrial capacity with them, there’s deep frustration that we’re doing this for a country that dragged us into a war we’re losing, a country that spies on us.”

The CIA report also tried to game out how these pressures could interact if Israel’s internal crisis deepened—how a single spark could turn political fracture into open civil conflict, and what would follow from there. Among the scenarios raised were foreign technology and artificial-intelligence companies pulling investment or personnel from Israel, further eroding an already strained economy, regional governments reconsidering the political and strategic value of deeper normalizing relations with Israel, and Hamas or Hezbollah exploiting a period of domestic weakness. The report specifically used the term “civil conflict,” according to the sources.

For decades, Israel’s power depended not only on weapons and American backing, but on the projection that its military dominance, intelligence superiority, and internal cohesion made the state effectively unbreakable. But as the assessment warned, beneath that projection of overwhelming force, Israel is accumulating economic, political, and social contradictions that military might alone may not be able to contain.

Israel is rewriting the Palestinian curriculum in East Jerusalem to erase Palestinian identity

2026-10-05T16:15:52Z

Nearly 38 percent of Palestinian students in East Jerusalem now study the Israeli curriculum, while the rest of the students' textbooks are being censored line by line, stripping mention of Jerusalem, prisoners, the Nakba, and freedom fighters.

The trial and humiliation of Sami Abu Shehadeh

2026-10-05T14:40:53Z

Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are no longer asked to pledge allegiance, but to renounce their own history. Palestinian Knesset candidate Sami Abu Shehadeh did exactly that before Israel's Supreme Court, and was pushed out anyway.

Saudi-backed forces launch major offensive in Yemen; U.S. kills 4 in Caribbean boat strike; Bolsonaro wins first round in Brazil election

2026-10-05T14:17:31Z

Saudi-backed Yemeni forces ride in a pick-up truck near the Jabal Han front, west of the city of Taiz on October 3, 2026. Photo by Ahmad Al-Basha / AFP via Getty Images.

Monday, October 5, 2026 –

Yemen: Yemen’s Saudi-backed government announces operation to retake Sana’a. Saudi-led coalition deploys 100 warplanes as Yemeni forces launch offensive. U.S. gives Saudi Arabia over 200 Ansarallah targets but holds off on direct strikes. Aramco CEO says rebuilding global oil stocks could take two years.

Iran: U.S. bombers withdrawn from UK’s Royal Air Force Fairford base. Middle East crude exports surpass pre-Iran war levels. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps orders tanker to turn back in Strait of Hormuz after string of attacks. Iran summons Norwegian ambassador over Starlink operations. Iraq to resume direct flights to Iran on Thursday.

Palestine: Israeli attacks kill 15 across Gaza since Saturday. Israeli forces kill worker, settlers attack olive harvesters across the occupied West Bank. Palestinian olive sector loses over $157 million since 2023. Israeli attacks damage or destroy 82% of Gaza’s buildings. Somalia’s president says country won’t accept Israeli presence “under any circumstances.”

Lebanon: Israel launches air and artillery attacks across south Lebanon despite ceasefire.

U.S.: President Donald Trump announces $90 payments to 20 million seniors from Medicare Improvement Fund, surprising Congress. War Secretary Pete Hegseth signals some U.S. troops could shift from Europe to Western Hemisphere. Montana court blocks birthdate requirement on absentee ballots that led to thousands of rejections. Judge blocks Department of Homeland Security environmental waivers, slowing border wall construction in Big Bend region. DHS bought five planes from firm of donor to former Secretary Kristi Noem at inflated prices in her final hours as secretary. U.S.-Russia Ukraine talks now include multibillion-dollar Lukoil oil deal tied to Trump allies. OpenAI head Sam Altman says “world should accept some bad things happening” to help AI industry. Trump threatens to “double” costs if South Korea doesn’t sign on to Alaska LNG project. Trump posts Sen. Tom Cotton’s personal cell number to pressure him on daylight saving time. California woman arrested for allegedly spying on Taiwanese president’s son for China.

International: U.S. strike on boat in Caribbean kills four. Pro-government forces seize capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan leaders issue joint declaration on Ethiopia conflict. Arrested journalists in Egypt describe torture, forced confessions. Flavio Bolsonaro outperforms presidential polls, will face current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil runoff. Pro-Imran Khan march launches after talks with Pakistani government collapse. India, Pakistan summon each other’s diplomats over deadly border incident. Mass protests demanding election chief’s resignation enter third day across India. Air strike kills UN aid truck driver in Sudan’s South Kordofan, World Food Program says; Rapid Support Forces accused of seizing WFP aid trucks. Nationalist party of Serb politician Milorad Dodik claims victory in Bosnia election despite his ban from office. Nicaragua withdraws from Central American Parliament. Russia strikes Kyiv bridge as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz makes unannounced visit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine is ready for U.S.-backed trilateral talks, accuses Russia of sharing jet technology with North Korea. Japan summons U.S. ambassador after Marine arrested in Okinawa murder. Philippines accuses Chinese maritime forces of obstructing anti-blast-fishing operation near Thitu Island.

This is Drop Site Daily, our free news recap We send it Monday – Friday

Yemen

Yemen’s Saudi-backed government announces operation to retake Sana’a: Rashad al-Alimi, head of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, announced Monday the launch of a military and security operation dubbed “Dawn of Yemen,” aimed at retaking the capital Sana’a from Ansarallah and restoring control over state institutions.
- “The Dawn of Yemen operation has begun to restore state institutions, liberate the capital Sana’a, and end the Houthi coup,” Al-Alimi said, a day after announcing the start of military operations to “restore the remaining territory of the Republic and extend state authority nationwide.”
- Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansarallah’s political bureau, dismissed Al-Alimi’s announcement, saying “the war today is between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.” He said Saudi aircraft were bombing Yemen while Ansarallah forces were responding “with missiles and drones deep inside Saudi territory,” adding that “it is the Saudi regime that controls the mercenary forces, not Rashad al-Alimi.”

Saudi-led coalition deploys 100 warplanes as Yemeni forces launch offensive: The Saudi-led coalition said Monday that 100 fighter jets were taking part in “Operation Dawn of Yemen,” providing round-the-clock air support to Saudi-backed Yemeni forces and air cover over the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.
- Coalition spokesperson claimed 324 “high-value” targets had been destroyed since the operation began. The coalition’s intervention follows overnight Saudi-backed strikes on Sana’a and the northern province of Saada.
- On the ground, Saudi-backed forces claimed Monday to have taken large parts of Dhubab district overlooking Bab al-Mandab. They also claimed control of the Dhubab airstrip and key positions around the strait, while Ansarallah-aligned media denied that Saudi-backed forces had advanced. Reuters reported that fighting remained under way in the area.
- Elsewhere, Saudi-backed forces claimed gains in southern Taiz. The military claimed it had carried out 1,122 attacks across Saada, Al-Jawf, Taiz and the western coast, killing or otherwise “neutralizing” 1,747 Ansarallah fighters. The figures could not be independently verified.
- Ansarallah said Sunday it had launched ballistic missiles and drones at Aramco facilities in Riyadh and Khurais, causing major fires. It said the strikes were retaliation for 50 Saudi airstrikes and missiles over the previous 12 hours on Sana’a, al-Jawf, Taiz, Amran, Hajjah, and Saada.
U.S. gives Saudi Arabia over 200 Ansarallah targets but holds off on direct strikes: The U.S. military provided Saudi Arabia with intelligence and targeting data for its operations against Ansarallah in Yemen, including more than 200 targets over the past two weeks, a U.S. official told Axios.
- Washington has twice rejected recent Saudi requests to directly join the fighting.
- Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman again asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday for U.S. airstrikes to support a planned Saudi-backed operation in Yemen, but a U.S. official said Washington “is not going to take kinetic action for now.”
- President Donald Trump also held off on ordering strikes against Ansarallah last week after a request from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
- CENTCOM has raised concerns that direct U.S. involvement in Yemen would divert attention and resources from Iran, according to a U.S. official.
- U.S. officials said Washington is currently providing Saudi Arabia with support short of direct combat, but direct U.S. military action could still be considered if the Saudi-backed operation runs into difficulties.
Aramco CEO says rebuilding global oil stocks could take two years: Replenishing global oil inventories while meeting demand could take “up to two years,” as disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz continue amid the war with Iran, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said Monday.
- “The world entered the crisis with oil inventories of around 10 billion barrels” and has since “lost nearly 3 billion barrels” of oil supply, Nasser said, adding that roughly half the crude and refined products normally shipped through Hormuz have been lost. “Less than 6 billion barrels of commercial inventories remain, and most of them are practically unavailable.”
- “Emergency reserves may get us through the winter, but they do not solve the supply problem in the long term,” Nasser said, warning pressure would continue “until the Strait of Hormuz fully reopens and confidence returns.”
- Aramco is considering additional crude export routes and overseas storage, Nasser said. “If we are asked to provide 12 million barrels per day, we can provide it within days.”

Iran

U.S. bombers withdrawn from RAF Fairford: The U.S. abruptly removed all U.S. long-range bombers deployed to the RAF Fairford airbase in England and returned them to their U.S. home stations over the weekend. The move, which was not explained, comes days after British authorities arrested several individuals over what the officials have claimed was an Iranian plot targeting the base.
- Fairford has served as a forward operating location for U.S. Global Strike Command and hosted B-1 bombers used in the war against Iran.
Middle East crude exports surpass pre-Iran war levels: Crude exports from the Middle East exceeded pre-war levels on four of the final seven days of September, reaching 19.5 million to 22.5 million barrels per day (bpd), according to provisional data from ship-tracking firm Kpler reported by Reuters via Al Jazeera. Before the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, exports averaged about 18 million bpd.
- The seven-day average for crude exports stood at 18.5 million bpd on October 1, while combined flows of crude, refined products, chemicals and other non-gas liquids averaged 22.4 million bpd in the seven days through September 30.
- IRGC commander Ali Fadavi disputed the scale of traffic Sunday, saying only “three to four million barrels” of oil were moving through the route each day and describing that volume as “negligible” compared with pre-war levels.
- Kpler’s figures include Strait of Hormuz transits, Red Sea flows, terminal exports, and ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, but exclude vessels traveling with their tracking transponders switched off.

IRGC orders tanker to turn back in Strait of Hormuz after string of attacks: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ordered an inbound tanker in the Strait of Hormuz to turn back on Monday, warning that the vessel would otherwise be targeted, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations. The tanker complied with the order, which was issued about 11 nautical miles north of Khasab, Oman.
- The incident follows three consecutive days of attacks on tankers in and around the Strait. On Sunday, a tanker was struck by an unknown projectile that damaged its engine room. On Saturday, a crude oil tanker was hit on its port side by an unknown projectile four nautical miles east of Oman. On Friday, another tanker was struck during an outbound transit, causing a small fire and blackout before the vessel resumed its journey.
- No casualties or environmental impacts were reported in any of the three attacks.

Iran summons Norwegian ambassador over Starlink operations: Iran summoned Norway’s ambassador in Tehran on Sunday and lodged a formal protest over Oslo’s failure to stop unauthorized Starlink operations inside Iran.
- Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. and Israel of using Starlink to advance an “interventionist and divisive agenda” in Iran and criticized Norway for taking no effective action despite repeated requests from Tehran.
Iraq to resume direct flights to Iran on Thursday: Iraqi Airways will resume direct flights to Iran on October 8, Iraq’s Transport Ministry announced Monday.
- The new schedule will include daily flights between Najaf International Airport and Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan.
- Iraq halted flights to and from Iran on September 25 in line with U.S. sanctions and subsequently sought exemptions for pilgrimage, medical and educational travel. Reuters reported that the U.S. Treasury exemption for Iraqi Airways runs for one month, with a more permanent arrangement potentially to follow.

Palestine

Killed and wounded in Gaza: Over the past 24 hours, five Palestinians were killed—three in new Israeli attacks and two due to wounds sustained in earlier attacks—and 26 injured across Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. One body was also recovered.
- The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 is now 74,243 killed, with 175,232 injured. Since October 11, 2025, the first full day of the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 1,460 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 5,116, while 836 bodies have been recovered.
- 181 Palestinians were added to the cumulative death toll after their data was completed and verified, the Ministry noted.
Israeli attacks kill 15 across Gaza since Saturday: One Palestinian was killed and more than five others were wounded, including two children, on Monday in an Israeli drone strike on the southern Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis, according to WAFA.
- Several Palestinians were wounded, including one critically, when an Israeli drone struck near the Taiba Towers west of Khan Younis.
- In northern Gaza, a woman was shot in the head by Israeli naval forces in the Al-Sudaniya area northwest of Gaza City. Another woman was wounded by Israeli quadcopter fire in the Zeitoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.
- On Saturday, Israeli attacks killed nine Palestinians, including four women and a child, across Gaza.
- An Israeli airstrike on the Al-Asala building in western Gaza City killed five people: two Palestinian Christian women, an elderly woman and her daughter, and one man.
- Five Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the Strip on Sunday.
Israeli forces kill worker, settlers attack olive harvesters across the occupied West Bank:
- Hebron: Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian worker and wounded two others, one critically, near the entrance to Bani Naim, southeast of Hebron, on Monday, according to WAFA.
  - Israeli settlers chased ten workers near Khirbet Huwara, east of Yatta, firing into the air and severely beating several of them.
  - Israeli forces also demolished a 140-square-meter home sheltering two families in Al-Deirat, east of Yatta, along with a water well, tent and sheep pens.
- Jenin: Three Palestinians were injured when settlers attacked olive harvesters in the Khirbet Amriha and Al-Makhal areas, southwest of Jenin. A 42-year-old man suffered a broken leg, another man was injured in his left hand, and an elderly man was beaten and pepper-sprayed, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
- Ramallah: Settlers stole harvested olives and damaged trees in Umm Safa and Al-Mazra’a Al-Gharbiya, northwest of Ramallah, with the latter attack taking place under Israeli military protection. Settlers also attacked olive harvesters in Al-Taybeh, east of Ramallah.
  - Israeli forces separately raided Birzeit University with a military bulldozer, demolished and seized a memorial bearing the names of students killed by Israeli forces, and detained a university security guard.
- Nablus: Settlers continued stealing olives from Palestinian farmland in Beita, south of Nablus. In Burqa, northwest of Nablus, settlers attacked farmers harvesting olives in the Bab Al-Jamea area, prevented them from continuing their work and stole a tractor.
  - Six Palestinian families returned to their homes in Tal, southwest of Nablus, after Israeli forces had forced them to leave the houses for more than two months.
Palestinian olive sector loses over $157 million since 2023: Palestinian farmers lost more than $157 million in olive crops since 2023, while some 286,000 olive trees in the occupied West Bank were damaged between 2023 and the end of September 2026 due to Israeli measures and settler attacks, according to the Palestinian Agriculture Ministry.
- The ministry said around 100,000 olive trees were damaged in the West Bank in the first nine months of 2026 alone, with crop losses exceeding $67 million. Farmers are currently unable to access roughly 30% of the West Bank’s olive-growing land, due to Israeli restrictions, settler attacks, land seizures, and the theft of olive crops.
- In Gaza, more than 90% of an estimated two million olive trees have been lost since the war began in 2023, alongside extensive destruction of infrastructure supporting the olive sector.
Israeli attacks damage or destroy 82% of Gaza’s buildings: Around 201,290 buildings in Gaza, or an estimated 82% of all buildings in the Strip, were damaged by Israeli attacks between October 7, 2023 and June 16, 2026, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
- Of those, 134,422 buildings were completely destroyed and another 13,848 severely damaged. Most of Gaza’s roughly 2.1 million residents remain displaced and confined to less than 40% of the Strip due to Israeli access restrictions.
Somalia’s president says country won’t accept Israeli presence “under any circumstances”: Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told Al Jazeera on Sunday that Somalia will not accept an Israeli presence “under any circumstances.”
- In the interview, he alleged that Israel intends to establish a naval base in the port city of Berbera, and to use the city’s airport. He called these plans part of a “Greater Israel” project and described Israel as a “destabilizing force” which regularly violates international law.
- Berbera is within the territory claimed by the self-declared republic of Somaliland, whose statehood Israel became the first to recognize in December 2025. Mogadishu insists Berbera remains part of the Somali Republic.
- He also told the outlet that the United States remains Somalia’s strongest partner against “terrorism.”

Lebanon

Israel launches air and artillery attacks across south Lebanon despite ceasefire: Israeli warplanes carried out strikes on Kfar Tebnit and Wadi Al-Hujair in southern Lebanon on Monday, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported, while Israeli forces artillery shelled the outskirts of Hadatha and Bra’shit.
- Overnight, Israeli shelling also targeted Al-Mansouri and Majdal Zoun.

U.S. News

Trump announces $90 payments to 20 million seniors from Medicare Improvement Fund, surprising Congress: President Donald Trump announced on Saturday plans to send $90 payments to more than 20 million Medicare Part B enrollees this month, funded by about $2 billion from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which has gone unused for its stated purpose—namely, improving Medicare’s hospital and medical insurance programs—since its 2008 creation.
- The announcement caught congressional offices in both parties by surprise and could unravel unrelated funding talks, a GOP aide told the Washington Post. Lawmakers originally intended to use Improvement Fund monies to help fund several other programs, including the Community Health Center Fund, the National Health Service Corps, the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program and several special diabetes programs, according to the aide.
Hegseth signals some U.S. troops could shift from Europe to Western Hemisphere: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Saturday that some U.S. military capabilities currently in Europe could be redeployed “either back home to the big, beautiful base that we’re going to build … or to a different posture in the Western Hemisphere,” part of the administration’s push for “burden sharing” with the U.S.’s European allies and its increasing focus on military activity in the Western Hemisphere.
- Hegseth cited expanded partnerships with Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Panama in his remarks on Saturday, crediting “the bold move the president made in Venezuela” in capturing Nicolás Maduro with opening “a whole new suite of options economically and militarily.” He also reiterated the U.S. is at “war” with cartels, vowing to “posture and base as necessary” to take the fight to what he called “those ISIS and Al Qaeda of our hemisphere.”
Montana court blocks birthdate requirement on absentee ballots that led to thousands of rejections: A Montana state court ruled Friday night that HB 719, a 2025 law requiring absentee voters to include their birthdate on ballot envelopes or have their votes rejected, violates the state constitution, a win for disability advocates who argued the requirement increased the risk of valid ballots being thrown out over technicalities.
- The law led to nearly 3,000 rejected mail ballots in the November 2025 election in a state where roughly 80 percent of voters cast absentee ballots. State officials failed to produce evidence of voter fraud justifying the law or explain how the birthdate requirement would prevent it, the court noted in its decision, stressing as well “the undisputed fact HB 719 has resulted in thousands of ballots being rejected due to a missing or incorrect birth year.”
Judge blocks DHS environmental waivers, slowing border wall construction in Big Bend region: U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone issued a preliminary injunction Friday blocking the Department of Homeland Security from using waivers that exempted border barrier construction from historical and environmental protection laws across more than 500 miles of Texas’s Big Bend region, which includes Big Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National Park.
- The order requires DHS to follow those laws while the legal challenge brought by Friends of the Ruidosa Church, river guide Danny William Miller and the Center for Biological Diversity proceeds.
- The ruling follows a separate judge’s Thursday denial of a temporary restraining order specific to the national park, where the administration paused work through Sept. 30. DHS has said it is considering reducing the project’s scope, for which a $1.7 billion contract was already doled out to construct a “Big Bend border wall.” In filings, the administration said it would announce a final decision this week.
DHS bought five planes from Noem donor’s firm at inflated prices in her final hours as secretary: On Kristi Noem’s last day as homeland security secretary, DHS agreed to pay Daedalus Aviation Corporation $108 million for a luxury 737 that the firm had bought months earlier from a seller asking under $90 million, plus $106 million for two Gulfstream jets Daedalus had purchased for about $83 million and $45 million each for two 17-year-old 737 passenger jets that six aviation experts told the Times were worth roughly $15-30 million, according to a Sunday report from the New York Times.
- Daedalus’s chairman, William Walters, gave $10,000 to Noem’s political action committee in 2024, and his companies received more than $900 million in DHS contracts under Noem. Her successor at DHS, current secretary Markwayne Mullin, explored canceling the deal but, per two White House officials, was advised by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles against it over potential financial penalties.
U.S.-Russia Ukraine talks now include multibillion-dollar Lukoil oil deal tied to Trump allies: U.S.-Russia negotiations over ending the Ukraine war have expanded to include a multibillion-dollar sale of Lukoil’s international oil assets, the New York Times reported on Saturday, with the leading bidder group featuring Todd Boehly—a Trump donor who gave $2 million to Trump-aligned causes—alongside Qatar’s Khayyat brothers, who have business ties with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, an Abu Dhabi fund controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed that is also a business partner of Kushner and bought a large stake in Trump’s World Liberty Financial, and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.
- Putin first raised the deal with Steve Witkoff and Kushner at a Sept. 5 Kremlin meeting, and U.S. approval would lift sanctions on the assets, instantly boosting their value. The deal awaits approval from the Treasury Department, with the current extension of sanctions relief on Lukoil’s U.S. businesses running through Oct. 29.
Altman says “world should accept some bad things happening” to help AI industry: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman contrasted his firm’s worldview with that of rival firm Anthropic in an interview with POLITICO’s Decoded, saying “we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.” He rejected Anthropic’s calls for centralization and regulation in the industry, calling this “a completely unacceptable trade-off.”
- The comments come as the two companies’ policy positions have converged in recent months, with Altman backing Dario Amodei’s call to slow development of the most advanced models, OpenAI endorsing stricter state safety laws and lobbyists for OpenAI backing a bipartisan House proposal requiring outside safety evaluators.
Trump threatens to “double” costs if South Korea doesn’t sign on to Alaska LNG project: President Trump said he “didn’t jump the gun” in announcing South Korean participation in a $50 billion Alaska LNG project. “Tell them if they don’t sign shortly, I’m going to double it up,” Trump said Friday, without specifying what would be doubled. Seoul has said it is still assessing the project, with participation dependent on commercial viability and compliance with domestic legal procedures.
Trump posts Sen. Tom Cotton’s personal cell number to pressure him on daylight saving time: President Trump posted the personal cellphone number of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Saturday and urged Arkansans to call and tell him to “GET IT DONE” on the Sunshine Protection Act, a bill to make daylight saving time permanent that passed the House in July but faces Senate opposition from Cotton and other Republicans.
California woman arrested for allegedly spying on Taiwanese president’s son for China: The FBI arrested Wanying Zhang, 34, of Irvine, California, at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday before her planned departure to China, charging her with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for allegedly surveilling a son of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te at the direction of Chinese officials.

📥 Have a tip on Capitol Hill? Email DC Correspondent Julian Andreone at Julian@dropsitenews.com

Other International News

U.S. strike on boat in Caribbean kills four: The U.S. military said it attacked a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean on Sunday, killing four people. U.S. Southern Command said the boat, a go-fast vessel, was targeted along known smuggling routes, but the military provided no evidence it was carrying drugs; a video posted on X appeared to show an explosion destroying the moving boat.
- Sunday’s attack brings the total killed in boat strikes to at least 239 across 71 strikes since the Trump administration began targeting alleged “narcoterrorists” in September 2025.
Flavio Bolsonaro outperforms polls, will face Lula in Brazil runoff: Brazilian Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro won about 47 percent of valid votes in Brazil’s first-round presidential election Sunday, exceeding his performance in private polls conducted before the election and narrowly outpacing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who won 44.9 percent of the vote. The two are set to face each other in an Oct. 25 runoff.
Pro-government forces seize capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region: Pro-government forces, led by the Tigray Peace Forces (TPLF) militia, announced in a Sunday Facebook post that they had regained control of Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, with a source close to the militia saying fighters entered the city center Saturday afternoon, followed by the Ethiopian military.
- The TPLF confirmed it had retreated and said the regional government would be “temporarily moved out of Mekelle and operate from somewhere else.”
- The loss of Mekelle is a major setback for the anti-government coalition led by the TPLF, which announced its offensive against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government on September 23.
Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan leaders issue joint declaration on Ethiopia conflict: The leaders of the Egyptian, Eritrean, Somali and Sudanese governments—Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Isaias Afwerki, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan—issued a joint declaration regarding clashes in Ethiopia on Sunday after a meeting in New Alamein City, Egypt.
- The resolution appears to target several Ethiopian policies: it states that Red Sea control should remain with coastal states, a response to landlocked Ethiopia’s pursuit of sea access, and warns against “unilateral measures” harming downstream states over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The declaration also backed Sudan’s military-led government and urged a Sudanese-led political process.
- Ethiopia has accused Egypt, Eritrea, and Sudan of backing the TPLF-led armed alliance fighting its government—claims all three deny.
Arrested journalists in Egypt describe torture, forced confessions: Several of the journalists from the news platform Matsdaash who were detained and forcibly disappeared in Egypt last week told prosecutors on Sunday they had been tortured at National Security Agency facilities in the days following their arrests, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).
- The journalists described being bound with their hands behind their backs and blindfolded while being held and interrogated at National Security facilities. They also reported beatings, forced stripping, electric shocks, and threats to harm them or their families, EIPR reported. The journalists also said officers forced them to read statements on camera in order to record false confessions.
- The prosecution’s questioning of five of the journalists—Abdallah Qadry, Islam Barakat, Omar Helal, Mohamed Adel, and Mohamed Mahmoud—is scheduled to continue on Monday. Questioning was completed on Sunday for the sixth journalist, Mohamed Ashraf Abu Emeira, and the Supreme State Security Prosecution ordered him to be held in pretrial detention for 15 days pending investigation.
- The families and lawyers of the journalists still do not know where they are being held.
- On Capitol Hill, several members of congress have called for the journalists’ immediate release, including the Egypt Human Rights Caucus, co-chaired by Reps. Don Beyer and Suzan DelBene; Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
Pro-Imran Khan march launches after talks with government collapse: More than 5,000 supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan began a protest march Sunday from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province toward Islamabad after two rounds of scheduled talks between the PTI and the government over the weekend failed to reach a resolution.
- The march was originally planned for Sept. 27 and aims to secure the release of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his three sisters. It is set to reach Khairabad, 80 km from the capital, by Thursday, where the PTI will announce its “next phase.”
- Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi accused KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi of “sabotaging” negotiations and warned authorities would “pursue [protesters] one by one” for violating an Islamabad High Court order barring parties from occupying public roads. The Pakistani government has also blocked main routes into the capital using shipping containers.
India, Pakistan summon each other’s diplomats over deadly border incident: India and Pakistan summoned each other’s top diplomats Saturday over an October 2 incident in which Pakistan says India’s Border Security Force used “unprovoked lethal force” to kill two unarmed Pakistani civilians in the Bedian sector of their international border. In its account of the incident, India claimed three people crossed illegally into Punjab’s Ferozepur sector and kept moving toward the border fence despite repeated warnings, forcing the BSF to “engage them for posing an imminent security threat.”
- Pakistan has demanded an “immediate, transparent and credible investigation” into the incident.
- India dismissed Pakistan’s account of the killings as “baseless and motivated,” describing the incident as part of “a clear pattern of repeated cross-border movement by armed narcotics syndicates operating from Pakistan.”
Mass protests demanding election chief’s resignation enter third day across India: Thousands of youth and opposition protesters rallied for a third straight day Sunday, demanding the resignation of Election Commission of India chief Gyanesh Kumar over voter-roll revisions critics say have removed millions of voters in ways benefiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
- Opposition leaders Raj and Uddhav Thackeray led a large protest march in Mumbai on Sunday. Similar demonstrations continued in New Delhi on Sunday evening, where police have detained dozens and filed cases against some for violating bans on mass gatherings. An opposition alliance plans to march to the election commission’s office Tuesday, while the Cockroach Janta Party, a major force in these protests, plans to hold a major rally in New Delhi on October 10.
Air strike kills UN aid truck driver in Sudan’s South Kordofan, WFP says; RSF accused of seizing WFP aid trucks: An air strike on clearly marked World Food Program trucks carrying food aid killed a driver Saturday in South Kordofan as the convoy traveled between two army-controlled cities, the WFP said Sunday, without identifying who was responsible. The agency called for an investigation into the killing and said it underscores “the increasingly challenging security environment in Sudan and the risks that aid workers face.”
- Separately on Sunday, Abdel Baqi Mohamed Hamed, humanitarian aid commissioner for the Darfur regional government, accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of seizing 32 World Food Programme trucks from a 60-truck convoy that crossed from Chad through the Tina border point last week. He said the RSF had released 12 of the 44 trucks it had originally seized, but continues to hold the remainder while demanding large extortion payments.
Dodik’s party claims victory in Bosnia election despite his ban from office: Preliminary results from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Sunday general election show Zeljka Cvijanovic of banned Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik’s right-wing Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) party leading the race for the Serb seat in the country’s three-member presidency. The victory would reinforce Dodik’s influence despite his conviction last year for defying the international envoy overseeing the 1995 peace agreement, which barred him from the ballot.
- Leftist Denis Becirovic led in the race for the Bosniak seat, and Croat nationalist Darijana Filipovic appears poised to take the seat reserved for her coethnics.
Nicaragua withdraws from Central American Parliament: Nicaragua’s foreign ministry announced Saturday that it would immediately withdraw from the Central American Parliament, denouncing the 1987 treaty establishing the six-country body and calling its exit “a full exercise of its sovereignty.”
- The announcement comes a day after the Organization of American States passed a resolution urging Nicaraguan authorities to free political prisoners and restore civil liberties.
- The move continues a pattern of retreat from international institutions by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, following Nicaragua’s 2023 exit from the OAS, which it called a tool of “U.S. interventionism,” and its 2025 announcement of withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council after a UN report urged action on its rights abuses.
Russia strikes Kyiv bridge as Germany’s Merz makes unannounced visit: Russia struck the Northern Bridge over the Dnipro River in Kyiv on Sunday, the same day German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made an unannounced visit to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It was the second Kyiv bridge hit this weekend, also damaging a road and hot water supply, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
- Addressing his visit, during which he toured the missile-damaged National Academy of Sciences with Zelenskyy, Merz wrote that “if Russia is not stopped, its war machine will sooner or later turn against us.”
- On Sunday, Germany announced that it would send $1.1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, in addition to $394 million to repair Ukraine’s energy sector. The two countries are also set to finalize a deal to jointly produce long-range drones capable of traveling more than 600 miles.
Zelenskyy says Ukraine ready for U.S.-backed trilateral talks, accuses Russia of sharing jet technology with North Korea: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a Kyiv news conference with Merz on Sunday that Ukraine is ready to join trilateral technical-level talks with the U.S. and Russia by the end of October, confirming the UAE, which has hosted prior rounds, could again serve as the venue or “another country proposed by the American side.” U.S. mediation efforts had been paused since Washington launched its war on Iran.
- Zelenskyy also accused Russia on Sunday of sharing jet-drone technology with North Korea, answering “yes, of course” when asked about the matter, adding “they are sharing with North Korea all the technologies... because North Korea helped them with missiles.” Russia has sharply increased its use of jet drones against Ukraine in recent weeks, and Ukraine has so far had no effective countermeasure beyond using combat aircraft.
Japan summons U.S. ambassador after Marine arrested in Okinawa murder: Japan summoned U.S. Ambassador George Glass after Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, a 20-year-old U.S. Marine, was arrested on suspicion of robbing and murdering 39-year-old Anna Yagi in Naha, Okinawa.
- Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the incident “extremely brutal and heinous” and said Japan “lodged a strong protest” with the U.S. envoy.
Philippines accuses Chinese maritime forces of obstructing anti-blast-fishing operation near Thitu Island: The Philippine Coast Guard said on Sunday that Chinese vessels blocked a Philippine law enforcement operation against a foreign fishing vessel suspected of dynamite fishing near Thitu Island (Pag-asa) in the South China Sea, with two China Coast Guard ships sounding horns, radio-challenging, shadowing, and blocking Philippine boats while a Chinese navy helicopter circled the team four times. The suspect vessel then fled toward Chinese-built Subi Reef, and Philippine authorities ended the pursuit for safety reasons.
- Separately, the Philippine military said a Chinese J-16 fighter jet repeatedly approached and maneuvered close to a Philippine patrol aircraft over Scarborough Shoal on Saturday, creating an aviation safety risk. It condemned China for its “recurring pattern of unsafe and coercive behavior.”

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Livestream: Symbolism is not enough

2026-10-05T08:52:27Z

Craig Mokhiber on Netanyahu at the UN. Jon Elmer on US aircraft losses. Trump’s post-midterm war threats.

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Sudan’s RSF Refused to Rescue Dozens in Gold Mine Collapse Where at Least 82 Died, Survivors Say

2026-10-05T00:02:28Z

Photo taken with a mobile phone on July 6, 2026 in the Wadi Halfa area of northern Sudan after a gold mine collapse. Photo by Mohamed Osman/Xinhua via Getty Images.

Story by Aunnab Alman

WEST KORDOFAN, Sudan—At 3 p.m. on Tuesday, September 15, Abu Fayza al-Fadil, 32, climbed out of one of six interconnected shafts at Sudan’s Al-Zaraa gold mine to take a break.

Minutes later, the shafts collapsed, burying dozens of his colleagues underground.

“I went out to rest for a few minutes, and suddenly the ground shook and the shaft disappeared, along with everyone inside it,” al-Fadil told Drop Site by phone from a Starlink point in the village of Al-Raqeeq, where the mine is located.

“There were just a few minutes between me and death,” he said. At the time, he had been thinking about his wife and their two young children.

Around 45 men had been working in the shaft he had just left, al-Fadil said. Yet, paramilitary fighters stationed nearby refused to help, survivors say.

Mohammed al-Hassan was in a second shaft when it gave way. “There were about 60 of us down there when it collapsed,” he told Drop Site.

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“Twenty-five died. We pulled their bodies out ourselves. Seventeen of us made it, six of them injured, and we got them out with our own hands. The others are still missing. We don’t know what happened to them.”

Al-Hassan said the miners asked the RSF for help and were turned away. “We went to a Rapid Support Forces post about 15 minutes away and told them people were trapped,” he said. “They had two excavators, and they refused to help.”

All six shafts collapsed into one another, burying the miners inside. At least 82 people were killed and around 50 injured, a local administration official told reporters the following day. A source in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group that controls the area, gave AFP the same death toll and said an unknown number of people remained trapped.

No updated toll has been released since. A few days after the collapse, the RSF sealed off the area around the mine, local sources said, clearing out even the miners who were searching for their colleagues. No one has been allowed near the mine since.

The RSF was itself a partner in running the mine, according to local miners, after they took control of West Kordofan state in December 2025. Gold is one of the main sources of revenue for both sides of Sudan’s war—the national military, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the RSF—according to conflict economy experts. Over two million people work in the mining industry in Sudan.

But the sector remains dangerously unregulated. This is the fourth major gold mine collapse in Sudan this year, following Abu Jubeiha in January, where at least six miners died, Keliti in April, which killed at least seven, and Wadi Halfa in July, where 15 died.

Occupational safety experts say the pattern is the same each time. Informal shafts are dug without oversight. The Al-Zaraa mine, near the town of Al-Nuhud, was made up of deep, interconnected pits dug without safety equipment or shoring, the temporary supports that hold up a shaft’s walls and roof. Local residents dug them in recent years.

Locals to the Rescue

Rescue fell to local residents. Al-Tahir Issa, 30, lives in Al-Raqeeq and arrived within an hour of the collapse.

“We found the young men in a state of shock and bewilderment. Some of them did not know what had happened, while others had managed to get out on their own, some with injuries and fractures,” said Issa.

“We locals volunteered to help. We brought our tools from home like pickaxes and shovels, and began trying to rescue those trapped and give first aid to those coming out of the mine.”

“By the second day, we had recovered 25 bodies and 13 injured people,” said Issa, describing the recovery effort he joined. “After the bodies were recovered, we performed the funeral prayer for them.”

There is no conventional mobile network or public internet in the area. Survivors and residents could speak to Drop Site only intermittently, from shops and spaces with Starlink terminals, which are also under RSF control. Many were hesitant to discuss the mine or the authorities who run it.

None of the miners Drop Site spoke to saw medical teams or any response from the authorities, whether the RSF’s civil administration or the national government. The Sudanese Mineral Resources Company, the state body that oversees mining, has not issued any statement on the Al-Zaraa collapse, although it did comment days later on a collapse at the Awni mine in Red Sea State.

Among the dead was Abu Bakr Hamid al-Daqil, 27, who was in a third shaft with around 30 other workers. None of them survived. Since his father’s death, he had been the sole provider for his mother, Halima Mustafa, and his sister, Fatima.

“When we heard about the collapse, we waited to find out whether Abu Bakr had made it out,” his mother said.

Mohammed al-Zaki, 26, also died in the collapse. His sister, Lamia, said he had been studying economics at Bahri University in Khartoum North when the war broke out and classes were suspended.

“He decided he did not want to continue his studies and would go to work in the mines. He knew the work was hard, but he went because he wanted to establish himself and get married,” she said. “After a year of working in various mines, he died, leaving grief in our hearts that will never heal.”

Khaled Qarashi, a researcher and environmental activist with the Sudanese Environmental Conservation Society, said most miners have no knowledge of soil conditions.

“Informal mining relies on shallow digging without any shoring, personal protective equipment or rescue tools,” he said. “The authorities only take notice after major disasters have occurred, at which point they intervene to close the mines temporarily, only to reopen them later.”

Lack of Opportunities

Mohammed Haroun, who manages a mining pit in Northern State where the SAF is in control, said young men have few alternatives. “Rampant unemployment, deteriorating living conditions and a lack of opportunities, even before the war, coupled with the war’s worsening of these conditions, have made mining the only viable option for them to provide for their families,” he said.

Pits are owned by individuals or investors who pay for the digging and basic tools, Haroun said. Workers are paid through a quota system based on daily output. “Once the gold has been extracted, local traders and collectors buy it for cash, and it is then transported through commercial networks to the major markets.”

There is no set income, Haroun said. A miner who goes down the shafts might spend three months at a mine and find a single piece of gold worth around $2,000, or earn nothing at all. Workers at the washing mills, where material from the shafts is washed until the gold separates out, are paid by the load. Washing one sack can bring in the equivalent of about $30, though rates vary from well to well and mine to mine.

Gold was a source of rivalry between the SAF and the RSF even before the war began in April 2023. As the fighting continued, the country’s gold fields were effectively divided between the two sides.

According to London-based think tank Chatham House, the army controls the main mining areas in River Nile, Northern, Red Sea and South Kordofan states, while the RSF oversees mining in Darfur and parts of Kordofan, including West Kordofan.

In RSF areas, Chatham House found, the paramilitaries protect mining and related trade, impose set channels for selling gold, and, in some cases, take part in production directly. In army-held areas, production and trade run through institutions linked to the government in Port Sudan, while cross-border smuggling has grown.

Profits from gold, the study found, pay for weapons and goods that help both sides and their allies keep fighting. Large quantities of gold have been smuggled out of the country to finance the RSF, according to experts commissioned by the United Nations.

Less than a week after Al-Zaraa, a fifth mine collapsed, this time at Awny in Red Sea State, near the Egyptian border, killing at least 10 people and injuring 21, according to survivors. Unlike Al-Zaraa, Awny lies in army-held territory, as do the Keliti and Wadi Halfa mines that collapsed earlier this year.

This story was published in collaboration with Egab.

Ansarallah Advances, Israel Murders, Trump Withdraws, and Why Iran Still Controls the Strait: The War Brief

2026-10-04T20:41:23Z

On this week’s episode of the War Brief, hosts Sarmad Jawad and Murtaza Hussain break down the most critical military and foreign policy developments across the Middle East and Eastern Europe over the past week.

In Yemen, Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, continue their rapid advances across western Yemen, moving to encircle the city of Taiz and firming up their control control over the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait. As Saudi Arabia reportedly plans a major military offensive against the group with the support of regional countries, Ansar Allah is establishing facts on the ground in their battle to control Yemen.

In Gaza, the Israeli military has continued to carry out strikes killing Palestinian civilians in Gaza—including deadly strikes targeting journalists and members of Gaza’s small Christian community. According to most recent figures, Gaza’s Health Ministry has recorded at least 1,431 Palestinians killed and 5,026 wounded since the October 2025 ceasefire.

In Europe, Moscow has issued a direct warning to NATO, threatening the use of its full military arsenal—including nuclear weapons—if Western operations isolate the militarized exclave of Kaliningrad.

Meanwhile in Iraq, U.S. allies in Iraq feel betrayed by Trump's withdrawal of forces from the country, even as many ordinary Iraqis celebrate the withdrawal.

Despite claims from Donald Trump, Tehran firmly maintains control over the Strait of Hormuz, striking eight oil tankers in just five days. Iran is preparing contingency plans for an escalated conflict, including likely targeting of naval and aerial support bases like those on the Indian Ocean island Diego Garcia.

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Ansarallah Advances, Israel Murders, Trump Withdraws, and Why Iran Still Controls the Strait: The War Brief

2026-10-04T20:41:23Z

Meanwhile in Iraq, U.S. allies in Iraq feel betrayed by Trump's withdrawal of forces from the country, even as many ordinary Iraqis celebrate the withdrawal.

LISTEN 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: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribeDONATE to support Drop Site's independent journalism. Help us continue our work with a tax-deductible contribution at donate.dropsitenews.com.

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Who is Ali Ahmad Ali al-Amoudi, Hamas’s Acting Leader in Gaza, Prisoners’ Rights Advocate and Yahya al-Sinwar’s “Right-Hand Man”?

2026-10-03T23:30:25Z

Who is Ali Ahmad Ali al-Amoudi, Hamas’s Acting Leader in Gaza, Prisoners’ Rights Advocate and Yahya al-Sinwar’s “Right-Hand Man,” Reportedly a Leading Candidate to Succeed Khalil al-Hayya as Gaza Political Bureau Head?

Ali Ahmad Ali al-Amoudi, 2022

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Speaking on al-Aqsa television on September 10, 2023, Ali Ahmad Ali al-Amoudi told Palestinian prisoners, “We will not allow your will to be broken, whatever the cost” (‘Palestinian Information Center’, 2023). He lambasted Itamar Ben-Gvir and the occupation’s prison administration for attacking Palestinian prisoners’ rights after the occupation’s failure to prevent six Palestinian prisoners’ successful escape through a tunnel, referring to the Gilboa prison escape of 6 September 2021, known among Palestinians as the “Freedom Tunnel” operation (ʿAmaliyyat Nafaq al-Ḥurriyya).[1] He also highlighted Ben-Gvir’s repeated attempts to pursue political popularity at the oppressed prisoners’ expense. Al-Amoudi described the restrictions undertaken by Ben-Gvir in a metonymic manner, with the prison policy standing in for the policy of the occupation government as a whole; he thus urged solidarity and joint efforts to expose the abuses, and pledged to continue fighting for prisoners’ freedom. Al-Amoudi declared: “For Hamas, prisoners, like al-Aqsa, are a fundamental, central issue” (ibid.). His address preceded a planned hunger strike beginning on September 14, 2023 against the restrictions on Palestinian prisoners.

Al-Amoudi, presently serving as deputy head of Hamas’s Political Bureau in the Gaza Strip and as the movement’s acting leader, survived an ‘Israeli’ assassination attempt in Gaza City during the night of Friday–Saturday, October 2–3, 2026. ‘Israeli’ Army Radio later reported that the attempt had failed. The strike hit a residential building in western Gaza City and resulted in the shahāda of five Palestinians, including four women; several others were wounded (‘Shafaq News’, 2026; Reuters, 2026). The targeting indicates that the occupation is actively attempting to target al-Amoudi, one of the most important Hamas figures in Gaza today.

Al-Amoudi was born in Khan Younis in 1975 and joined Hamas at an early age. His responsibilities increased after the shahāda of Yahya al-Sinwar in October 2024, when he assumed responsibilities concerning the movement’s political, organizational, and field affairs in Gaza (‘Quds News Network’, 2026). Like al-Sinwar, he was initially associated with the movement’s military activities but has come to occupy senior political posts over the course of the last decade. He is, at the time of this article’s writing, the deputy head of Hamas’s Political Bureau in the Gaza Strip and has been described as the “pivotal figure” managing political and field affairs after al-Sinwar (ibid.). It has been reported that the occupation regards al-Amoudi as the figure managing Gaza’s “field and political scene” (‘Al-Quds’, 2026). ‘Israeli’ media described him as the “de facto senior Hamas political official in Gaza” and as the leading candidate to succeed Khalil al-Hayya as head of Hamas’s Gaza Political Bureau, pending prospective internal elections (‘Times of Israel’, 2026a).

Al-Amoudi’s recorded history with Hamas dates to the Qassam Brigades’ early activity in the 1990s. A prisoner report published by ‘al-Resalah’, citing the Waed prisoners’ organization, identifies him as a resident of Khan Younis refugee camp and dates his first arrest to February 24, 1994 (‘al-Resalah’, 2011). According to the report, occupation forces arrested him inside occupied Palestine, where he had been working in a factory. He received a life prison sentence before moving through a number of occupation prisons; he was repeatedly placed in solitary confinement. His brother Abdullah was imprisoned for six months and subsequently detained for another six months under the designation of an “unlawful combatant”(ibid.).[2]

Al-Amoudi supplied a fuller account of his arrest and imprisonment after his liberation as part of the ‘Loyalty of the Free Agreement’ (Wafa al-Ahrar) agreement, in which 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for occupation soldier Gilad Shalit. In an interview published by ‘Palestine Now’ on December 30, 2011, al-Amoudi recalled emerging from a seven-hour armed clash in Abu Dis, near al-Quds, during which Qassam fighter Abd al-Rahman Hamdan became a shahīd. Al-Amoudi said that an occupation court sentenced him, approximately one month later, to three life imprisonment terms. He attributed the sentence to his participation in the operation in which Shin Bet officer Noam Menachem Cohen was assassinated. In al-Amoudi’s words, “I participated in assassinating the Shin Bet officer […] Noam Cohen” in a major luring operation; he described the operation as one that “shook” the Shin Bet and said that he spent 18 years in occupation prisons before his liberation (‘Palestine Now’, 2011).

In the 2014 Arabic anthology ‘Mudhakirat al-Asra,’ al-Amoudi recalled the eight years he spent incarcerated without seeing his parents or siblings and speaking to his brother through a mobile telephone smuggled into prison (al-Amoudi, 2014, pp. 59–60). His testimony also appears in the December 2011 “Shoulders of Men” account chronicled by Palestinian journalist Muadh al-Amoudi.[3] When asked about plans following release, he expressed his ardent desire for freedom before considering marriage, employment, or study. He also reflected that, when he returned, he had found that the children he knew had all become parents themselves.[4]

The operation against Cohen is worth highlighting, as it was a rather significant military operation. It took place in Ramallah in February 1994 (United Nations Special Committee, 1994, para. 141). The occupation army has frequently cited it, additionally alleging that al-Amoudi not only targeted Cohen but had participated in the elimination of four Israelis in the West Bank in 1993 and that later participated in decision-making concerning Tufan al-Aqsa (‘Erem News’, 2026). The later claim is unlikely, however, for, as Sayyed Salem Abu Musameh—a founder-generation Hamas figure and former president of the movement’s General Shura Council—underscored when he was interviewed by Palestinian journalist Samer Jaradat for Al Araby Tube’s ‘Lil-Hadith Sila’ podcast, “only three” Hamas figures had advance knowledge of the operation: “Marwan Issa, Yahya al-Sinwar, and Muhammad al-Deif” (Musameh 2026).

Following the Shalit exchange, al-Amoudi, like al-Sinwar, Rawhi Mushtaha, Tawfiq Abu Naim, Husam Badran, Jihad Yaghmur, Musa Akari, and Ziad Awad, returned to Hamas organizing and began to occupy senior political positions within the movement. Al-Amoudi’s long-term association with al-Sinwar is also of note, as they fraternized during their years in occupation prisons and together endeavored for better prisoner conditions (‘Quds News Network’, 2026). Accounts of the movement’s prison leadership identify al-Amoudi among the founding members of the ‘Supreme Leadership Committee of Hamas Prisoners,’ together with al-Sinwar, Mushtaha, Abu Naim, Saleh al-Arouri, Jihad Yaghmur, Abbas al-Sayyid, Mahmoud Issa, and other senior prisoners. The committee administered Hamas’s internal prisoner affairs, adopted organizational bylaws, discussed the movement’s participation in the 2006 legislative elections and the Prisoners’ Document, and maintained communications with the movement’s leadership outside prison concerning the negotiations for the Shalit exchange.

Within months of his release, al-Amoudi also participated in public advocacy for Palestinian prisoners. At a Ministry of Prisoners and Freed Prisoners seminar in Gaza on January 30, 2012, he called for greater participation by women, human-rights organizations, and the media in publicizing the prisoners’ cause (Safa, 2012). He stressed the importance of serious participation by released prisoners in activities concerning those still imprisoned.

On August 9, 2022, amidst reported prisoner negotiations (that subsequently broke down due to Bibi Netanyahu’s intransigence), al-Amoudi told ‘al-Aqsa Television’ that the occupation government was intentionally misleading its public about the fate of captives held by the resistance (Sama, 2022). He accused it of offering their families false assurances without evidence about their fate and declared that, contra the occupation’s claims, “[t]he heroes of the Shadow Unit [Waḥdat al-Ẓill], the Qassam Brigades’ secret security unit responsible for guarding captured occupation soldiers and concealing them from the occupation’s intelligence services “do not guard corpses” (ibid.; cf. Atallah, 2016). In the same ‘al-Aqsa’ interview, al-Amoudi also reaffirmed the resistance’s commitment to freeing Palestinian prisoners and saluted prisoners from the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948.

His remarks came four days after a demonstration near Gaza led by Hadar Goldin’s family and joined by Avraham Mengistu’s family, demanding the return of Avera Mengistu and the remains of occupation soldiers Goldin and Oron Shaul, who had died during the 2014 war (Associated Press, 2022). Mengistu was a Jewish citizen of ‘Israel’ of Ethiopian descent from Ashkelon who had a documented history of psychiatric hospitalization and crossed into Gaza near the beach on September 7, 2014 (Human Rights Watch, 2017). During the demonstration, hundreds of protesters approached the Gaza frontier, passed through two police checkpoints, and stopped at a third. Their placards called for the return of the soldiers’ remains and Mengistu and the captive Hisham al-Sayed. Al-Sayed was a Palestinian Bedouin citizen of ‘Israel’ from al-Hura in the Naqab who crossed into Gaza on April 20, 2015; medical records documented schizophrenia and repeated psychiatric hospitalization, while military records showed that he had volunteered for service in 2008 but was discharged within three months and was not a reservist when he entered Gaza. Hamas had released footage in June 2022 showing al-Sayed latter receiving oxygen and intravenous fluids in a hospital bed.

After his 2011 release, al-Amoudi began working in various positions within Hamas’s military-media, administrative, and political structures. He supervised the Qassam Brigades’ military media between 2015 and 2017. After al-Sinwar was elected Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip in February 2017, al-Amoudi served as director of his office. In 2021, he became head of Hamas’s media office in Gaza (‘Quds News Network’, 2026). By September 2023, he was regularly identified as the head of Hamas’s media department in the Gaza Strip, often circulating statements concerning Palestinian prisoners.

Before Tufan al-Aqsa, al-Amoudi’s media work included support for journalism and engagement with Gaza’s professional journalists. On September 20, 2021, he addressed the Palestinian Journalist Bloc’s elections as head of Hamas’s media department, praised the competitive election process, and called for strengthening journalism in service of the Palestinian cause and challenging the occupation’s narrative (Safa, 2021). He also lauded Gaza’s experienced journalists and younger journalistic talent.

‘Israeli’ Army Radio described al-Amoudi on October 3, 2026, as al-Sinwar’s “right-hand man” and personal assistant. Like many of ‘Israel’s’ claims, these should be understood as servicing a propagandistic political purpose, as repeatedly linking al-Amoudi to Sinwar licenses the occupation’s justification for their targeting him. However, it should be appreciated that al-Amoudi did serve as the director of al-Sinwar’s political office before moving on to endeavors concerning media and political work within the movement (‘Quds News Network’, 2026).

Al-Amoudi remained in Gaza during Tufan al-Aqsa and acquired greater administrative responsibilities. After al-Sinwar’s shahāda in October 2024, al-Amoudi became involved in administering Hamas’s political, organizational, and field affairs in Gaza. ‘Quds News Network’ describes him as one of the principal figures entrusted with these files after al-Sinwar (‘Quds News Network’, 2026). His position had already become central before the resumption of large-scale fighting in March 2025, and his responsibilities continued through the subsequent fighting.[5]

His responsibilities also extended to the movement’s wartime leadership arrangements. Palestinian and regional reporting describes al-Amoudi as a member of the emergency leadership that administered Hamas in Gaza after the loss of senior political and military leaders (‘Al-Akhbar’, 2026). Sources within Hamas have stated that he participated in “reorganizing the movement’s internal structures” and in efforts to “restore its capabilities” during the war (Yadid, 2026, citing purported internal sources and recordings). Al-Amoudi served under Khalil al-Hayya while the latter headed Hamas in the Gaza Strip and subsequently became the principal Hamas political official operating inside Gaza when al-Hayya assumed the leadership of the movement’s overall Political Bureau (‘Al-Jazeera’, 2026, citing Hamas sources).

Hamas elected al-Hayya head of the movement’s overall Political Bureau in July 2026. This left the leadership of Hamas’s Gaza Political Bureau to be filled through a separate internal election. On August 14, 2026, sources close to Hamas reportedly informed ‘Al-Araby al-Jadeed’ that the movement expected to hold the Gaza election shortly and that al-Amoudi was the “leading candidate” to succeed al-Hayya as head of Hamas in the Strip; the same sources identified al-Amoudi as one of the Hamas leaders closest to al-Sinwar (‘Al-Araby al-Jadeed’, 2026a).

Nizar Awadallah, a former head of Hamas’s Shura Council and a close associate of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, was also named in reporting on the internal contest (Agence France-Presse, 2021; ‘Al-Araby TV’, 2026). According to some sources—albeit, ones that should be treated with dubiety given their record for inaccurate and anti-resistance reporting—voting did take place, but the contest remained unresolved, as apparently neither al-Amoudi nor Awadallah secured victory in the first round, and Hamas temporarily suspended the runoff (‘Asharq al-Awsat’, 2026). This conflicts with an earlier report from July 20, 2026 announcing al-Amoudi’s election as Gaza leader (‘Roya News’, 2026). Nevertheless, throughout this period, al-Amoudi began performing many of the duties attached to the Gaza leadership. Palestinian and regional reports thus frequently describe him variously as “acting head of Hamas in Gaza,” “deputy head of its Gaza Political Bureau,” and the “official administering the Political Bureau’s affairs inside the Strip” (Quds News Network’, 2026).

Al-Amoudi’s political purview has been characterized as “more pragmatic” insofar as the postwar period is concerned (‘Al-Araby al-Jadeed’, 2026a; ‘Arab 48’, 2026; PNN, 2026). It should, however, be appreciated that this assessment of putative “pragmatism” was also often appended to al-Sinwar, particularly during the Cairo meetings from spring 2017 to the fall of 2017 when al-Sinwar repeatedly met with Mohammed Dahlan in order to come to an arrangement where significant facets of Gaza’s administration would be handed over to Dahlan’s flank of Fatah (Seurat 2022: 110; Brenner 2022: 219–222).[6] Just as al-Sinwar’s impetus was to “resolve the electricity shortage and even provide a longer-term solution with the construction of a new power plant” (Brenner 2020: 222), al-Amoudi was seemingly motivated by a desire to mollify the ever-exacerbating humanitarian catastrophe.

Al-Amoudi also publicly supported municipal elections in Gaza immediately before Tufan al-Aqsa. On October 3, 2023, he told ‘Radio Alam’ that fourteen Palestinian factions had signed a letter asking Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh to authorize local elections in Gaza as soon as possible (‘Felesteen Online’, 2023). He said that factions and civil-society organizations were ready to facilitate the elections and connected Hanna Nasser’s visit to Gaza to consultations initiated by Hamas in August. He said that factions and civil-society organizations were ready to facilitate the local elections and explained that Hanna Nasser, chairman of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission, had visited Gaza at the invitation of Palestinian factions and national forces to discuss overcoming obstacles to holding them, following consultations Hamas convened in August 2023 that concluded conditions in the Strip were suitable for voting (‘Felesteen Online’, 2023).

. Al-Amoudi affirmed Hamas’s readiness for local elections.

Hamas sources have reportedly claimed that al-Amoudi had been among the Hamas officials most influential in pressing internally for acceptance of Nikolay Mladenov’s Gaza roadmap in late July 2026 (‘Al-Araby al-Jadeed’, 2026a; ‘Arab 48’, 2026; PNN, 2026). The same sources said that al-Amoudi supported Hamas’s participation in the Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for November 2026 and had supported the political course that produced the October 2025 ceasefire agreement at Sharm el-Sheikh. ‘Quds News Network’ similarly associates al-Amoudi with the ceasefire negotiations and with Hamas’s consideration of proposals that coupled an end to the war with the occupation’s withdrawal. It also links him to discussions concerning the transfer of Gaza’s civilian administration to a technocratic or national administrative body (‘Quds News Network’, 2026) (‘Gaza Today’, 2026, reporting ‘Al-Akhbar’). These positions were reported while he continued to exercise responsibilities within Hamas’s Gaza leadership.[7]

The October 3 assassination attempt occurred shortly after midnight in western Gaza City. Gaza health and civil-defense officials reported that an ‘Israeli’ airstrike struck an apartment building and caused the shahāda of five Palestinians, including four women, while wounding several others. The occupation military subsequently confirmed that it had carried out a nighttime strike targeting al-Amoudi, although it did not initially establish the result of the operation (Reuters, 2026). ‘Al-Quds’ reported earlier in the day that the ‘Israeli’ security establishment was awaiting the result of the strike and that al-Amoudi’s fate remained unclear (‘Al-Quds’, 2026).

Several hours after the occupation military’s assassination attempt, ‘Israeli’ Army Radio later reported that it had failed (‘Shafaq News’, 2026). The army subsequently confirmed that al-Amoudi had been the intended target while stating that it was still reviewing the results of the strike (‘Times of Israel’, 2026b). The occupation’s statement identified him as a senior Hamas official and repeated the allegations concerning his involvement in the 1993 operation, the February 1994 operation against Noam Cohen, and decision-making associated with October 7.

As of 3 October 2026, Palestinian reporting continues to employ several titles for al-Amoudi. ‘Al-Quds’ calls him “deputy head of Hamas’s Political Bureau in Gaza” (‘Al-Quds’, 2026). Reports concerning Hamas’s internal elections describe him as the “acting leader” in the Strip and the “leading candidate for the permanent Gaza leadership” (‘Al-Araby al-Jadeed’, 2026a). ‘Israeli’ sources describe him as Hamas’s de facto senior political figure in Gaza (‘Times of Israel’, 2026a). More important than his official role, however, is the continuity that he signifies, for both the occupation and the movement, between al-Sinwar and Hamas’ contemporaneous approach—one that could rightly be simultaneously deemed “pragmatic” and “principled.”

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[1] During the “Freedom Tunnel” operation (ʿAmaliyyat Nafaq al-Ḥurriyya) of September 6, 2021, six Palestinian prisoners, Mahmoud al-Ardah, Mohammed al-Ardah, Yaqoub Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, Zakaria Zubeidi and Munadel Nafe’at, escaped from Gilboa prison through a tunnel (WAFA, 2021).

[2] There is, it should be here noted, a slight discrepancy in the reporting on Abdullah’s imprisonment. A November 2009 report reproducing an ‘al-Mezan’ statement identifies “Abdullah Ahmad Ali al-Amoudi, aged 26,” as having received a” six-year sentence and a fine of 10,000 shekels” following his arrest at Abu Holi checkpoint on November 15, 2003 (‘Palestinian Information Center’, 2009). It states that he served his sentence in Nafha prison but remained detained under the “unlawful combatant” designation after his scheduled release on August 20, 2009. If this is the brother identified in the 2011 account, the six-year sentence conflicts with the six-month sentence reported there.

[3] “Shoulders of Men” was published by ‘Palestine Now’ on December 30, 2011, shortly after Ali al-Amoudi’s October 2011 release. It was subsequently included in the 2014 anthology, Prisoners’ Memoirs (2014: pp. 59–60).

[4] Shortly after returning to his family home in Khan Younis, al-Amoudi recalled feeding a cat fish that cost 50 shekels per kilogram, prompting an objection from his father (al-Amoudi, 2014, p. 60). He associated the incident with his appreciation of freedom after imprisonment.

[5] On August 7, 2024, following Yahya al-Sinwar’s selection as head of the movement’s overall Political Bureau, ‘Ultra Palestine’ named al-Amoudi among figures close to him in its discussion of the prospective administration of Hamas’s Gaza region (‘Ultra Palestine’, 2024). The report identified al-Amoudi as head of the media department and discussed him alongside Rawhi Mushtaha.

[6] Between spring and autumn 2017, al-Sinwar led a Hamas delegation to Egypt for talks that offered another instance of the movement’s political flexibility (Brenner 2022: 219–222). The delegation met senior officials from Egypt’s General Intelligence Service and Mohammed Dahlan, a former senior Fatah official. Dahlan belonged to a faction opposed to Mahmoud Abbas, and Fatah had expelled him several years earlier over corruption allegations. He had since settled in the UAE, where he maintained close relations with the Abu Dhabi government. Originally from Gaza, Dahlan had acquired notoriety as Fatah’s senior security official for his treatment of Islamists, including interrogations involving methods akin to torture. He and al-Sinwar had been close childhood friends in the same Khan Younis refugee camp, but they had not met since the age of fifteen. The negotiations brought them together again some forty years later. After comparatively brief discussions, Egypt, Dahlan, and Hamas reached an agreement.

The agreement contained six principal provisions (Brenner 2022: 219–221). First, the parties would form an administrative committee with representatives from each of them. This body would manage the Rafah crossing and assume responsibility for part of the Hamas administration’s external relations. Second, they would establish a security buffer on the Gaza side of the crossing, after which Egypt would permit both commercial traffic and individual travelers to cross its border. A force of 100 Fatah personnel loyal to Dahlan would operate the crossing itself. Third, Gaza would acquire an energy authority outside Hamas’s control. Dahlan would finance the authority, which would begin building a power plant in Rafah. Egypt would supply diesel to Gaza’s existing plant at a discounted rate until the new facility began operating. Fourth, a social reconciliation committee would address unresolved claims from the families of Fatah members who had been killed or injured during the 2007 takeover. Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Khoder Habib was appointed to chair it. Hamas undertook to apologize without conditions and provide each family with US$50,000 in diya, or compensation. Dahlan would supply the money for these payments. The settlement aimed to end the decade of thar, or blood vengeance, and resolve the outstanding grievances. Dahlan had already obtained agreement in principle from most of the approximately 700 families concerned. Fifth, Hamas would surrender to Egypt wanted individuals associated with Salafi-Jihadi groups who had fled Sinai and taken shelter in Gaza. After President Morsi’s removal, renewed Salafi-Jihadi attacks and insecurity had affected Sinai, and some of those pursued by Egyptian authorities had escaped through the Rafah tunnels into Gaza. Sixth, Dahlan would secure several million additional US dollars each month for development projects in Gaza. The UAE would provide most of this funding, as it would the other financial contributions envisaged by the agreement. Hamas’s concessions went further than those it had previously offered; full implementation would transfer substantial administrative responsibilities in Gaza to Dahlan’s faction of Fatah. Haniyeh and al-Sinwar had recognized in spring 2017 that the political interests of Egypt, Dahlan, and Hamas were beginning to coincide. The agreement promised immediate relief from Gaza’s electricity shortage, while the proposed power plant offered a longer-term remedy.

As summer gave way to autumn in 2017, the agreement began to prompt a response from Ramallah (Brenner 2022: 222). Seeking to persuade Abbas to relax his position, Hamas announced in September that it would dissolve the Administrative Committee it had created to govern Gaza while awaiting implementation of the earlier Fatah–Hamas agreement on a consensus government. Abbas had made the committee’s dissolution a prerequisite for lifting the restrictions he had imposed on Gaza. Hamas now fulfilled that condition and invited Palestinian Authority ministers to Gaza City for an initial cabinet meeting.

[7] On January 29, 2026, al-Amoudi was identified as Hamas’s deputy head in Gaza and as directly supervising preparations to transfer governmental responsibilities to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) (‘al-Resalah’, 2026, reproducing ‘Al-Akhbar’). The preparations reportedly involved administrative records, employee lists, operational information, and the documentation of responsibilities. He also issued a circular directing officials to facilitate the transfer.

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