Drop Site Daily: November 3, 2025
Israel attacks Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, and the Nuseirat refugee camp on Monday, as it continues to bombard Gaza City, killing a man in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood on Sunday. Israel reverses a plan to allow around 200 Hamas fighters trapped behind the “yellow line” in southern Gaza to cross back into Hamas-held territory. The Knesset advances a bill imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis, as Israeli forces and settlers kill two Palestinians early Monday morning as part of the continued assault on the West Bank. Drop Site reports on U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s escalating campaign against Venezuela. Meghnad Bose and Biplob Das’s new reporting documents the 11th-hour push by the extremely wealthy to boost Andrew Cuomo’s floundering campaign against Zohran Mamdani. A federal judge orders President Trump to continue funding food stamps, but Trump warned that payments could be delayed until he received “appropriate legal direction.” Southern Lebanon remains under Israeli siege, as Lebanese troops confronted Israeli troops for the first time Sunday night. An Israeli drone struck a car in southern Lebanon this morning killing at least one person and injuring seven. American diplomat Tom Barrack promotes a monarchist vision for the Middle East. Oman’s chief diplomat places the bulk of the blame for regional instability on Israel, not Iran, at this weekend’s Bahrain summit. Massacres continue in El-Fasher. Tehran is running out of water, and Donald Trump inexplicably threatens military action against Nigeria.
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The Genocide in Gaza
- Israel attacked various areas of Gaza on Monday, including air raids on Khan Younis and artillery shelling in Deir al-Balah, while an Israeli naval gunboat shelled the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to Al Jazeera.
- The bodies of ten Palestinians arrived at hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, including two killed in new Israeli attacks and eight recovered from the rubble. The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 is now 68,531 killed, with 170,402 injured.
- Since October 11, the first full day of the ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 238 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 600, while 510 bodies have been recovered, according to the Ministry of Health.
- The bodies of 45 Palestinians were returned to Gaza by Israel on Monday, according to the ministry of health. A day earlier, Hamas returned the bodies of three Israeli soldiers that Israeli officials identified as troops that were killed on October 7, 2023. Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that the three bodies were found in a tunnel in southern Gaza. According to the terms of the ceasefire agreement, for the remains of each Israeli returned, Israel is to release the remains of 15 Palestinians. Since the ceasefire went into effect, Hamas has returned the remains of 20 Israeli captives, with eight still remaining in Gaza. Israel has returned the remains of 270 Palestinians. Only 78 have been identified so far, according to the ministry of health. Many bore signs of torture and field execution and dozens who remained unidentified have been buried in mass graves in Gaza.
- Israel has reversed a plan to allow some 200 Hamas fighters, trapped beyond the “yellow line” in southern Gaza, to cross back into Hamas-held territory, according to Israeli outlet N12. The proposal would have required fighters to surrender their weapons and be allowed to cross out of territory in Gaza the Israeli military still occupied, but political backlash led the prime minister to rescind it.
- Only four of the 3,203 aid trucks permitted into Gaza since the ceasefire have carried medical supplies, according to Palestinian politician and doctor, Mustafa Barghouti. Hospitals remain insufficiently supplied amid the collapse of Gaza’s health care system, and more than 16,500 patients—including 3,800 children—are still awaiting urgent specialized care as Israel continues to block medical evacuations.
- Hamas “strongly condemned” U.S. central command’s claim that its members looted an aid truck, calling the accusation “baseless” and that it was intended to justify aid cuts and obscure global inaction over Israel’s siege. The group said Israel has killed more than 1,000 Gaza police and security personnel guarding convoys, and they added that “all scenes of chaos and looting ended once occupation forces withdrew,” arguing Israel itself “sponsored those gangs.” Hamas says that no aid groups or drivers reported looting and, and they accused Washington of “moral complicity,” saying the U.S. “doesn’t need drones to see Israel’s crimes—only a conscience.”
- The director-general of Gaza’s health ministry said last week that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian bodies “is a disgrace to humanity,” reporting that 30 newly returned bodies showed signs of torture, burning, and being run over by military vehicles. He said some had been exhumed and reburied before being handed back, with several reduced to “only bones and teeth.” Calling the scene “shocking,” he vowed to continue pressing for international investigations so “the world can see what the occupation has done to our pure martyrs.”
- Israel is reportedly blocking all DNA testing equipment from entering Gaza, hindering efforts to identify both the remains of Israeli soldiers, and Palestinian bodies returned under the ceasefire deal. Hamas’s military wing said it offered Israel three DNA samples from unidentified remains, but Israel refused and demanded the full bodies instead. Al-Qassam said it transferred the bodies regardless “to cut off the enemy’s claims.”
- Israel is preparing a coordinated media campaign to embed foreign journalists in Gaza, aiming to shape global coverage of the devastation, according to Ynet. Under a plan presented to the Supreme Court, reporters will be escorted by Israeli forces only up to the “yellow line” in Israeli-controlled zones. Officials from Israel’s foreign ministry, the military’s spokespersons’ unit, and national public diplomacy directorate recently held strategy meetings to manage what they expect to be “anti-Israel” reporting. The escorted tour will include “demonstration sites” to depict Hamas activity in civilian areas and data to contest Gaza’s death toll.
- A new Lancet study estimates Gaza has lost more than 3 million years of human life since Israel’s assault began in October 2023. Researchers Sammy Zahran and Ghassan Abu-Sittah found that 60,199 recorded deaths translated to an average of 51 years of life lost each—most of them civilians, including over 1 million years among children under 15. A previous Lancet analysis in January concluded that Gaza’s true death toll was at least 40% higher than official counts due to unrecorded casualties from Israeli attacks.
Ceasefire Updates
- Jared Kushner and the U.S. are promoting a “new Gaza” plan to house one million Palestinians in new zones east of the Yellow Line on Israeli-controlled land—an idea Gulf donors have rejected as unworkable.
- President Donald Trump said he believes Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will join the Abraham Accords, though he was noncommittal about a two-state solution, he said in an interview with 60 Minutes. “I think we will have a solution. I don’t know if it’s going to be two-state,” Trump said, adding that the outcome would be “up to Israel and other people, and me.” His comments contrast with Riyadh’s long-stated position that normalization with Israel hinges on a credible path to Palestinian statehood—a stance the Crown Prince has repeatedly reaffirmed since Israel’s 2023 campaign in Gaza.
- Asked whether he could pressure Benjamin Netanyahu to recognize a Palestinian state, President Donald Trump dodged the question, instead saying he had pushed the Israeli leader to accept a ceasefire. Referring to Netanyahu’s corruption trial, Trump added that the U.S. “will be involved in that to help him out a little bit, because I think it’s very unfair.”
- At the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Gaza’s stability “will remain elusive” with Israeli forces remaining in the enclave. He called for a clear timeline for their withdrawal, while urging the redeployment of Palestinian police to handle internal security alongside a UN-mandated stabilization force. Safadi also confirmed Jordan’s offer to help train those forces, but Jordan will not send troops into Gaza and, instead, cooperate with a UN mission once the ceasefire’s second phase begins. He further warned that “unilateral measures that undermine the two-state solution must be stopped.” Eight Muslim nations that helped broker the truce are set to meet in Istanbul on Monday to discuss next steps.
- Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will use Monday’s Istanbul meeting to press for Gaza’s security and administration to remain under Palestinian control, according to Reuters. Joined by counterparts from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Pakistan, and Indonesia, Fidan will call for coordinated Muslim action to solidify the truce. Jerusalem has rejected any Turkish armed role in the proposed stabilization force.
- Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told CNN that Doha is working with Washington to secure a UN mandate for the international stabilization force in Gaza, ensuring security for both Palestinians and Israelis. He said the force must coordinate through a Palestinian authority and that Qatar supports the Palestinian Authority taking over reconstruction and governance once reforms are complete. Al Thani called the ceasefire “extremely complex,” accused Israel of daily violations, and confirmed a joint U.S.-Qatar-Egypt operations room to maintain the truce, reiterating that a two-state solution remains the only viable path to peace.
West Bank and Israel
- Israeli police arrested former Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, announced Monday by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned on Friday over her role in the leak of surveillance video that appeared to show Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman prison last year. Tomer-Yerushalmi was arrested overnight after disappearing for several hours on Sunday. The leaked video, published in August 2024, showed soldiers surrounding a handcuffed Palestinian detainee lying face down, holding up riot shields, and abusing him. The detainee, whose identity was not released, was later hospitalized with severe injuries. In February, military prosecutors charged five soldiers over the assault. Among the charges they faced was using a “sharp object” to stab the detainee near the rectum. In a post on Telegram on Monday, Ben-Gvir stressed “importance of… conducting the investigation professionally in order to uncover the full truth regarding the case that led to a blood libel against IDF (military) soldiers.” Public broadcaster Kan reported that Tomer-Yerushalmi was accused of “fraud and breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice and disclosure of information by a public servant”. She is allegedly implicated along with another member of the military prosecution.
- Israel’s National Security Committee has advanced a bill imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis, sending it to the Knesset for a first vote. The measure bars commutation and allows executions by simple majority rather than unanimous judicial approval. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hostage coordinator, Gal Hirsch, dropped his earlier opposition, saying “the reality has changed,” despite warnings that the policy could endanger future captives.
- Israeli forces and settlers killed two Palestinians early Monday—one in Nablus and another in Hebron—as violence surged across the occupied West Bank. The Israeli army arrested 15 Palestinians in overnight raids, including a woman from al-Dhahiriyah detained in order to pressure her husband to surrender. Settlers, backed by Israeli troops, continue attacking farmers and sabotaging olive harvests, with UN OCHA warning of escalating state-backed efforts to expel Palestinians.
- Drop Site contributor Jasper Nathaniel’s report on the October 19 settler mob attack in Turmus’ayya details how a group, led by outpost leader Amishav Malt, assaulted Palestinian farmers, leaving 60-year-old Um Saleh unconscious beneath her olive tree, although Israeli troops had promised “safe passage” and withdrew moments earlier. Nathaniel, who narrowly escaped the assault himself, describes how Malt later returned to the scene with Israeli police and continues operating alongside soldiers.
- The Prisoners’ Media Office announced the death of Mohammad Hussein Mohammad Ghawadra, a 63-year-old Palestinian captive in an Israeli prison on Sunday. Ghawadra was arrested on August 6, 2024 and was detained in Jannot Prison under harsh conditions, during which he was “deprived of necessary medical care and treatment despite suffering from chronic diseases,” according to the Prisoners’ Media Office. One of Ghawadra’s sons, Sami, is being held in administrative detention and the other, Shadi, was deported to Egypt as part of the ceasefire deal in January. At least 81 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli detention since October 7, 2023.
Venezuela
- DROP SITE EXCLUSIVE: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has expanded his campaign for regime change in Venezuela to include cartel-linked sites in Colombia and Mexico, despite U.S. intelligence assessments finding little Venezuelan involvement in fentanyl trafficking. President Donald Trump and senior officials discussed land strikes inside Venezuela in early October, leading to new target lists—mostly in Colombia—and GOP-only briefings that alarmed lawmakers over potential mission creep. Meanwhile, the administration continues funding opposition groups, redirecting hundreds of millions of dollars toward anti-Maduro efforts and programs supporting Venezuelan dissidents such as María Corina Machado. Read the latest from Ryan Grim and Saagar Enjeti here.
- On Saturday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that, “at the direction of President Donald Trump,” U.S. forces carried out another lethal strike in international waters in the Caribbean that killed three suspected “narco-terrorists” aboard a vessel the department described as operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization. Hegseth framed the action as part of a broader campaign to treat drug smugglers “exactly how we treated Al-Qaeda,” saying the department will “continue to track them, map them, hunt them, and kill them,” and added that no U.S. forces were harmed.
- New polling shows Americans are deeply divided over the U.S. “boat killings” in the Caribbean but broadly opposed to any military or covert effort to topple Venezuela’s government. Only 18% of respondents—including 35% of Republicans—support using U.S. forces for regime change, underscoring limited public backing for President Donald Trump’s escalating operations in the region.
- In an interview with Norah O’Donnell, President Donald Trump downplayed the likelihood of war with Venezuela but said Nicolás Maduro’s “days as president [are] numbered.” He defended the military buildup near Venezuela as part of a broader effort to fight “drugs, crime, [and] open borders,” claiming each destroyed “drug boat” saves “25,000 American lives.” Trump declined to say whether land strikes are planned, adding only that the deployed carrier group “has to be somewhere.”
- In a Bloomberg interview, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado made a series of extraordinary claims—saying Nicolás Maduro’s network has rigged elections (including in the U.S.), boasting of a clandestine million-member volunteer network with plans for the “first 100 hours” and “first 100 days” after Maduro’s fall. She also praised Secretary of State Marco Rubio as someone who “best understands the threats” from the region. Machado told Bloomberg she is in regular contact with the Trump administration and openly backed U.S. escalation—including land strikes if needed—to force Maduro from power, while again asserting (without evidence) that Hamas operatives are sheltering in Venezuela.
U.S. News
- “The Money Versus Mamdani”: Independent groups have poured record sums into New York’s mayoral race, with billionaire donors rallying behind Andrew Cuomo in a late push to derail Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani. Super PACs like Fix The City and Defend NYC have spent over $50 million—most of it on anti-Mamdani attack ads—bringing total outside support for Cuomo to seven times that of his opponent. Despite the onslaught, Mamdani leads in the pre-election polls by double digits, highlighting what Drop Site’s reporters Meghnad Bose and Biplob Das call a contest between “money versus Mamdani” as the race heads into its final days. Read the full report here.
- A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to continue funding food stamps during the government shutdown, requiring either full payments by Monday or partial payments by Wednesday to prevent hardship for low-income Americans. Judge John J. McConnell of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island directed the administration to use a $5 billion emergency reserve and explore additional Agriculture Department funds to maintain the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves about 42 million people. President Donald Trump warned Friday that payments could be delayed until he received “appropriate legal direction,” while the Justice Department said it was weighing possible emergency relief or appeal.
- Former President Barack Obama privately called New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Saturday to praise his campaign and offer to serve as a “sounding board,” if he wins Tuesday’s election, according to people familiar with the conversation. During the 30-minute call, Obama commended Mamdani’s discipline under pressure and discussed the challenges of staffing a new administration focused on affordability and governance. While stopping short of a formal endorsement, the outreach signaled Obama’s quiet backing of the 34-year-old democratic socialist, even as other Democratic leaders have kept their distance, amid a contentious race against former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa.
- Express Scripts, the Cigna-owned pharmacy benefit manager for TRICARE, charges the military’s health insurance program an average of $484 more per generic drug than other pharmacies, costing taxpayers millions, a Lever investigation found. Lawmakers are seeking to mandate transparency in the upcoming defense bill, but face opposition from Cigna’s lobbying arm, which has spent nearly $40 million since 2019 to protect its contracts. Read the full report here.
International News
- The world’s leading authority on food crises, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), said famine has spread to two regions in Sudan: the city of El-Fasher in Darfur, and the city of Kadugli in South Kordofan province, with “a total collapse of livelihoods, starvation, extremely high levels of malnutrition, and death.” 20 more areas in Darfur and Kordofan, where fighting intensified in recent months, are also at risk of famine, according to the IPC report. El-Fasher had been under siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for 18 months, cutting off food and other supplies to tens of thousands of people inside. Last week, the RSF seized the city and massacred hundreds of civilians. Witnesses said the RSF executed boys, abducted men, and carried out widespread killings, sexual violence, and looting while tens of thousands remain trapped. Satellite imagery analyzed by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab showed at least 31 clusters of bodies and “indicators that mass killing is continuing.”
- The Lebanese Army confronted Israeli troops near Mais al-Jabal on Sunday night after new orders from Lebanon’s president to respond to any ground incursions, following Israel’s October 29 raid in Blida that killed a municipal worker. Lebanese tanks deployed as Israeli forces moved east of the town, L’Orient Today reported. Earlier, Israeli drones struck areas near Khiam and Zefta, and artillery hit positions near Chebaa, causing property damage but no casualties.
- At least one person was killed and several others wounded Monday after an Israeli drone strike hit a car in the town of Al-Duwair in southern Lebanon’s Al-Sharqiyah area, according to Drop Site sources and L’Orient Today. The vehicle was engulfed in flames, setting nearby cars alight as ambulances responded to the scene. L’Orient Today reported that the drone continued circling overhead in the Nabatieh district, where Israeli strikes have intensified in recent days. Preliminary reports about the attack indicate that two people were killed and around ten others were wounded in the drone strike, though official confirmation is still pending.
- Israel’s Defense Minister warned that “Hezbollah is playing with fire” and accused Lebanon’s president of “dragging his feet,” demanding Beirut act to disarm the group and remove it from the south. He vowed to continue “maximum enforcement” to eliminate threats as Israeli air and drone strikes have intensified, killing four Lebanese civilians yesterday and destroying reconstruction equipment across southern Lebanon.
- Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa will make a historic official visit to Washington in early November, becoming the first Syrian leader to do so, Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain. Shaibani said the agenda will center on lifting U.S. sanctions, reconstruction, and cooperation against the Islamic State, noting that “any effort in this regard requires international support.” U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said the trip could include signing an agreement to join the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition. Shaibani added that while Syria and Israel have opened security talks following Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, joining the Abraham Accords “is not being considered.”
- Iranian officials have warned that Tehran’s main water source, the Amir Kabir Dam, could run dry within two weeks as the country faces its worst drought in decades. The dam currently holds just 14 million cubic meters—about 8% of its capacity—down from 86 million a year ago, according to state media. With rainfall in the Tehran region at its lowest level in a century, water supplies have already been cut to some neighborhoods, and authorities have declared multiple public holidays to conserve energy as temperatures topped 40°C (104°F) in the capital and 50°C (122°F) elsewhere.
- Chinese refiners are scaling back purchases of Russian crude oil after Washington and its allies expanded sanctions to target Moscow’s biggest oil producers and their trading partners, Bloomberg reported. Major state-run firms Sinopec and PetroChina have reportedly canceled multiple cargoes following new U.S. sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, while smaller private refineries—known as “teapots”—have also paused imports amid fears of secondary sanctions. The latest U.S. measures seek to further restrict funding for Russia’s war in Ukraine by tightening controls on its energy exports.
- Pakistan has partially reopened the Torkham border crossing with Afghanistan to allow thousands of stranded Afghan refugees to return home, officials said Saturday, nearly three weeks after the frontier was sealed following deadly clashes. Trade and other cross-border movement remain suspended as both sides maintain a ceasefire struck after weeklong talks mediated by Turkey and Qatar. Videos from Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province showed officials welcoming returnees with flowers, while Pakistan continues its campaign to deport undocumented Afghans—more than a million of whom have already been repatriated since 2023.
- President Donald Trump has threatened military action against Nigeria over alleged anti-Christian violence, saying he ordered the Department of War to “prepare for possible action.” In a social media post, Trump warned that U.S. aid would be cut if Nigeria “continues to allow the killing of Christians,” adding that any strike would be “fast, vicious, and sweet.” Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu rejected Trump’s characterization, saying his government protects freedom of religion for all citizens and remains committed to working with Washington.
- Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in for a second term under heavy security after an election widely condemned as fraudulent and violent. The ceremony in Dodoma was closed to the public and broadcast on state TV. Samia claimed 98% of the vote, facing no serious challengers after rivals were jailed or barred. International observers questioned the election’s transparency and reported hundreds of deaths in post-election violence, though verifying details has been difficult due to an ongoing internet blackout.
- At least nine people were killed, and many others injured, across Ukraine in a new wave of Russian aerial attacks, according to Ukrainian officials. Strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region killed four people, including two children, while attacks in Odessa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia left several more dead and tens of thousands without power. Ukraine’s energy operator imposed rolling blackouts after what it called “massive Russian missile and drone attacks,” while Kyiv said it struck Russian fuel infrastructure near Moscow and along the Black Sea in retaliation.
More From Drop Site
- Monday, Nov. 3—Join a conversation with journalists abducted by Israel from Gaza aid flotillas, featuring Drop Site’s Alex Colston, Emily Wilder, and Noa Avishag. The discussion will be moderated by Chip Gibbons of Defending Rights & Dissent. Hear first-hand accounts of their detention, press-freedom risks, and what these cases mean for documenting humanitarian aid at sea. Link here.
Programming note: You can sign up here to get updates from us on our WhatsApp channel.
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