Drop Site News

The United States and Iran reached an initial agreement early Monday to extend the ceasefire for 60 days and open the Strait of Hormuz. The text of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) has not been released, but Iran has publicly indicated that the deal includes a permanent cessation of military operations across all fronts, including Lebanon specifically. The signing of the agreement is set for Friday in Switzerland, with U.S. Vice President JD Vance saying he plans to attend and leaving open the possibility President Donald Trump could as well. In the first 24 hours after the MOU was formally announced, the Israeli military carried out drone strikes, artillery fire, ground incursion attempts, and road demolitions across south Lebanon, killing at least three civilians and wounding several others. Despite this, thousands of displaced Lebanese have begun making their way south looking to return to their homes.Drop Site’s Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill, Murtaza Hussain, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous discuss the MOU between the U.S. and Iran, its geopolitical implications, how Lebanon is a pivotal part of the deal, and why Palestine is not specifically named in the agreement. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

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

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

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

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