Drop Site Daily: November 7, 2025
Israel’s defense chief orders the Israeli military to “destroy and annihilate” all tunnels in Gaza used by Hamas, as daily air strikes and demolitions continue. U.S. President Donald Trump claims an international stabilization force will enter Gaza “very soon.” Israeli forces shoot dead two Palestinians in the village of al-Judeira. October marked the highest monthly number of recorded Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians since the UN began keeping track in 2006. Susan Collins and Todd Young fake out the majority of Americans hopeful for the passage of a War Powers resolution to curb Trump’s ambitions on Venezuela, and vote “no” after indicating their concerns with the Executive Branch. Judge orders Trump to release all SNAP funding. Elon Musk gets 1 trillion dollars, theoretically. Tucker Carlson calls Lindsey Graham a “sick fuck.” OpenAI begins extending its hand for a taxpayer bailout, and the U.S. government begins to deputize immigration enforcement. Israel attacks Lebanon with wave of airstrikes in one of its biggest post-ceasefire escalations. U.S. strikes 18th vessel in the Carribean. Kazakhstan joins the Abraham Accords. Sudan ceasefire accepted by the RSF, but remains unlikely. Tigrayan militants enter Ethiopia’s Afar region, and Nigeria’s military fights jihadists in its northeast. Peru bans Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum from entering the country. Cambodia can buy American weapons again.
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New from Drop Site: “Jeffrey Epstein Helped Israel Sell a Surveillance State to Côte d’Ivoire”—leaked emails show the details behind talks between Cote d’Ivoire and Israel shepherded by Ehud Barak and Jeffrey Epstein. Read the full report here.
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The Genocide in Gaza
- An Israeli drone attack on the neighborhood of Shujaiya in Gaza City on Friday wounded a child, according to Wafa. Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes and artillery continue to pound southern Khan Younis, according to Al Jazeera.
- Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz, ordered the military to “destroy and annihilate” all tunnels in Gaza.. “If there are no tunnels, there is no Hamas,” he wrote in a post on X.
- The UN said on Thursday that Israeli authorities have rejected 107 requests for the entry of crucial aid into the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire went into effect, including items such as blankets, winter clothes, and tools and materials to maintain and operate water, sanitation and hygiene services.
- UNRWA reported that up to 20 percent of children in Gaza are missing essential vaccines in its announcement of a new campaign which aims to reach 44,000 children. This need for preventive medicine is paired with a need for urgent medical treatment, as the WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus estimated today that 16,500 require such care.
- The UN warned on Thursday that Israel continues to detonate residential buildings daily in areas where its troops remain deployed—especially eastern Khan Younis, Gaza City, and Rafah. Air and ground strikes are also ongoing near and east of the “Yellow Line,” killing civilians in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis.
- U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed that Washington is pressing Israel to allow safe passage for roughly 100-200 Hamas fighters trapped near the Rafah crossing in exchange for their disarmament. He told the audience at a business conference in Miami that he is coordinating with Israeli as well as Turkish diplomats. Israeli diplomats have publicly rejected similar proposals in the past, but officials have said that the Israelis have not ruled it out privately, according to the Times of Israel.
- At a White House event on Thursday, President Trump said that he expects a U.S.-coordinated “international stabilization force” in Gaza. “It’s going to be very soon,” he said. “And Gaza is working out very well.”
- Egypt and Turkey have also voiced concerns on Hamas’s disarmament, according to Middle East Eye. Egypt reportedly fears being drawn into the process of disarming the fighters, with Egypt saying it does not want to “do the job Israel was unable to do.” Meanwhile, Turkish diplomats warned that the draft treats peacekeepers like an occupation force, with them saying it would prefer the “stabilization force” be limited to policing borders and ceasefire enforcement with UN oversight.
- Madleen Kullab, after whom the Freedom Flotilla ship “The Madleen” was named, has recovered the body of her father, tortured while imprisoned by the Israelis, according to Translating Falasteen. Kullab took her father’s place at sea as a fisherwoman when he fell ill. Of the 285 bodies returned by Israeli authorities to Gaza, only 84 (among them, Kullab’s father) have been identified.
West Bank and Israel
- The Israeli military killed two Palestinians near the village of al-Judeira last night whom it claimed threw Molotov cocktails towards a road. Meanwhile, 15 Palestinians were injured when Israeli troops fired live ammunition and tear gas at protesters in the village of Beit Lid, east of Tulkarem according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. The protest was against the theft of land and personal property in the area in recent weeks.
- October 2025 marked the highest monthly number of recorded Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians by UN OCHA since the agency began documenting such incidents in 2006, the group said in its humanitarian update on Thursday. OCHA recorded more than 260 attacks in October resulting in casualties, property damage or both—an average of eight incidents per day. “The surge in October continues a steady upward trend observed throughout the year, with approximately 1,485 settler attacks documented since January 2025,” OCHA wrote, adding that a child represents one in every five Palestinians killed by Israeli forces so far in 2025 across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
- Israel is beginning to decrease the number of reservists it stations on its numerous fronts, according to The Wall Street Journal. The military mobilization has had a considerable negative effect on the country’s economy and society—and follows well-documented difficulties the army had before the ceasefire to get reservists to report for duty—the report states.
- 104 U.S. Representatives have called upon Israel to halt demolitions in the West Bank village of Umm-al-Kheir, the village featured in the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land.” Lawmakers involved include Jamie Raskin, Jerrold Nadler, Sara Jacobs, and Dan Goldman. In their letter, lawmakers cited the killing of community leader Awdah Hathaleen and warned that the destruction of 13 homes and a community center leaves families homeless at the onset of winter. They also note that any destruction flagrantly violates international law. The UN joined in this call Friday morning.
- The Israeli Embassy in Washington is circulating a letter making several misleading claims about Mohammed Zaher Ibrahim, the 16-year-old American citizen presently in Israeli custody, according to Drop Site Contributor Jasper Nathaniel. For example, the letter cites Ibrahim’s “confession” to throwing rocks at cars, while leaving out his sworn affidavit where he wrote “The interrogator threatened that if I did not comply, he would instruct the soldiers to beat me. Out of sheer fear, I ultimately confessed.” Ibrahim’s next hearing in Israeli court is scheduled for November 9th; a link to calls for action can be found here.
U.S. News
- Sens. Susan Collins and Todd Young waited until the last minute to vote no on the War Powers Resolution limiting the Executive Branch’s power to escalate against Venezuela, Ryan Grim reports, and killed the bill in doing so. Young had previously said he was “troubled by many aspects” of the operations against Venezuela and believed that it was at odds with the opposition of the majority of Americans to this conflict, but voted no anyway.
- A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to release SNAP’s full funding by Friday, after a partial disbursement was cobbled together using the Department of Agriculture’s contingency funds. The judge, John J. McConnell Jr., said that the “USDA cannot now cry that it cannot get timely payments to beneficiaries for weeks or months because states are not prepared to make partial payments. USDA arbitrarily and capriciously created this problem.” The Justice Department is expected to appeal this ruling, according to the Washington Post.
- U.S. companies announced 153,074 job cuts last month, the most in any October in two decades, via data collected by the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc., according to Bloomberg. These workers join the more than 1.1 million laid off this year. The technology and warehousing sectors have been the most affected in this recent surge, and much of it attributable to AI. Employment has also suffered, the report’s authors claim, as corporate and consumer spending decreased while the cost of goods went up. “Those laid off now are finding it harder to quickly secure new roles, which could further loosen the labor market,” they write.
- Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion pay package for Elon Musk, even as investors, advisers, and activists were vocal in their opposition to that amount of compensation, according to the Washington Post. Musk reportedly used his involvement in the company as leverage to secure the deal, and has claimed his role in the development of AI will deliver on his promises related to the auto manufacturer’s future. The package comes as Tesla’s profits have declined in the wake of Musk’s controversial involvement with the Trump administration, which a Yale study estimated cost Tesla more than 1 million vehicle sales.
- IRS Direct File, the electronic system almost 300,000 Americans used to file their taxes directly for free, has been terminated by the Trump Administration, according to reporting by the Associated Press. The program was piloted by the Biden administration and was intended to make it easier for users to file their taxes fast and easy. Regarding the change, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that there are “better alternatives” and that he thinks “the private sector can do a better job.”
- Right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson described Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina as a “sick fuck” for saying, before a summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition, that he, “feel[s] good about the Republican Party. We’re killing all the right people and cutting your taxes.” Carlson called cutting taxes “hardly a virtue…it’s a contextual matter. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not,” but took more umbrage with describing “killing people” as always a good thing. “You’re a sick fuck if you say something like that,” he said, “much less if you believe it.”
- DHS has stopped using software that automatically captured text messages and saved trails of communication between officials, The New York Times reports. Since April, officials have been expected to take screenshots of their messages to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, which experts claim opens the door for willful noncompliance in the agency that oversees both ICE and Border Patrol.
- Rep. Ritchie Torres, now facing a challenge for his congressional seat, told Scott Galloway of the “Raging Moderates” podcast that he believes that Mamdani will be able to push through at least some of his proposals, because of the “attentional power” that the position wields. “If I were a betting man, I would bet that he gets the free buses and he gets the tax increase.”
- OpenAI, which lost $12 billion in the last quarter alone, is seeking a government bailout to help it get out of its potentially $2 trillion hole, according to a new report at The American Prospect. At a recent conference, its CFO said a government loan might be “necessary” to keep the company afloat, though she later walked back the claim. It has been piling up losses, however, and its leadership has repeatedly tried to win President Trump’s favor.
- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was hacked on Thursday by a foreign actor leaving key financial data used to craft legislation vulnerable to interference, according to the Washington Post. Some congressional offices have stopped corresponding with the CBO over email due to the cybersecurity risk, a source claims, and the “foreign actor” in question has yet to be identified.
- Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s volunteer team advertised a new 501c4 called “Our Time” with the aim of mobilizing his base to pass his agenda.
- ICE reportedly signed a $7 million contract with SOS International, known for its “skip tracing” services (a term used in both the debt collection and bounty hunting industries), which had previously been contracted by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, according to a new report from The Lever. Read more about this deputized immigration enforcement apparatus and its potential connections to Blackwater here.
- The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned three alleged Hezbollah operatives——Ossama Jaber, Jaafar Mohammad Katsir, and Samer Kasbar— accused of channeling tens of millions of dollars from Iran through Lebanese money-exchange networks, allegedly helping to move over $1 billion from Iran’s Quds Force through unlicensed exchanges and covert oil, metals, and chemical deals since January 2025.
International News
- The Israeli military conducted heavy airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to reporting from Reuters, with at least one person killed. The bombings were accompanied by Israeli evacuation orders telling residents to stay 500 meters away from the targets. Since the ceasefire went into effect a year ago, Israeli military attacks in Lebanon have killed over 270 people and wounded 850, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. No Israelis have been killed since the ceasefire and Hezbollah has claimed only one attack since the agreement took effect. After Israel’s wave of attacks on Thursday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement “Nearly a year has passed since the ceasefire came into effect, and during that time, Israel has spared no effort to demonstrate its rejection of any negotiated settlement between the two countries,” he said. “Your message has been received.”
- U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced another extrajudicial killing targeting a small boat in the Caribbean, in an attack that Hegseth claimed without evidence killed three “narco-terrorists.” The attack marked the 18th strike on such a vessel since early September, with over 60 killed in these operations.
- The UN Security Council voted Thursday on a U.S. resolution to remove terror-related sanctions on Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab. The Chinese government abstained from the vote amid ongoing disputes with Syria over the presence of Uyghur militants in the country.
- Kazakhstan is expected to join the Abraham Accords after a Thursday night meeting between Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and President Donald Trump, Axios’ Barak Ravid reports. Kazakhstan already had a peaceful diplomatic relationship with Israel for decades, opening an Israeli embassy in Astana shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its own declaration of independence in 1992.
- Five were killed and six were wounded during a brief cross-border skirmish between Afghanistan and Pakistan, AFP reports. The clashes come amid ongoing tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan over border disputes and the presence of militants in the region.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered officials to submit proposals for a resumption of nuclear testing in response to President Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. will restart its own atomic tests, according to The Associated Press.
- People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of attacking civilian villages, according to Al Jazeera. These soldiers inflicted damage on herders in the Megale district with “heavy weapons,” the Afar government alleges. The Afar region was part of the pro-government coalition in the war between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government that lasted from 2020 to 2022.
- The U.S. military may use El Salvador as an air base for possible operations against Venezuela, the New York Times reports, sending at least three aircraft including attack plane AC-103J Ghostrider to the country. The buildup involved in these operations has involved 10,000 troops, drones, bombers, and almost a dozen Navy warships.
- Peru’s Congress declared that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was unwelcome in the country by voting to declare her a “persona non grata” days after diplomatic ties were severed between the countries, a report from France 24 relays. The most recent conflict started when the Mexican embassy began hosting a Peruvian opposition politician, Betssy Chavez, the country’s former prime minister under the now-jailed Pedro Castillo, who faces charges of conspiracy for her alleged role in Castillo’s plans to dissolve Congress. Mexico claims it is operating strictly under international law by hosting Chavez, and it previously granted asylum to Castillo’s wife and children after his arrest.
- Fourteen Nigerian troops were injured during an attack on a base in the country’s northeastern Borno state by Islamic State West Africa (ISWAP) militants, AFP reports. Nine of the militants were reportedly captured and several killed by the Nigerian army in the attack. The Borno state has been the site of militant activity for years including by the armed group Boko Haram.
- The Trump administration lifted a four-year-old arms embargo on Cambodia following the ceasefire deal it signed with Thailand last week. The original embargo was primarily a result of concern about Cambodia’s military relationship with China, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling the lifted embargo a reward for Cambodia’s “diligent pursuit of peace and security.” Arms sales from the United States to Cambodia will now be approved on a case-by-case basis.
More From Drop Site
- “Jeffrey Epstein Helped Israel Sell a Surveillance State to Côte d’Ivoire”: Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak were specialists in war profiteering. Drop Site’s latest in an ongoing series about Epstein’s ties to Israel’s intelligence covers how the two men worked together as a conduit for Israel’s intelligence sector in Côte d’Ivoire, where Barak was welcomed as a representative of the Israeli government even after leaving public office. Epstein helped Barak deliver a proposal for mass surveillance of Ivorian phone and internet communications, crafted by former Israeli intelligence officials. A decade later, that apparatus is helping keep an authoritarian leader in power.
- Drop Site contributor Harrison Berger went on the Redacted podcast to discuss developments in the Sde Teiman rape case and the arrest of whistleblower Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi. Watch his full appearance here.
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