Drop Site Daily: December 19, 2025
At least three killed in continued Israeli attacks on Gaza. A report from The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) finds Gaza still facing starvation. UN warns impacts of Israeli restrictions on NGOs working in Palestine will be “immediate and catastrophic.” U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with officials from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt on Friday. At least 18 people are killed in Gaza’s winter storms this week. Doctors Without Borders says restrictions on aid must be eased to save the lives of Gaza’s children. Israel’s Supreme Court denies a request to prevent the demolition of buildings in a West Bank refugee camp. Washington sanctions two International Criminal Court judges for advancing cases involving Israel. Feds report that they found the Brown gunman dead, and that he is likely responsible for the murder of an MIT professor as well. The Trump administration moves to suspend the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery. Health and Human Services proposes rules limiting gender-affirming care for minors. Trump admin officials are planning a further crackdown on “left-wing terrorism.” Emails shed new light on Noam Chomsky’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. 16 people killed in RSF artillery bombardment of besieged city in Sudan’s Kordofan region. Saudi military readies for possible engagement with UAE-backed Yemeni separatists. French, U.S., and Saudis discuss disarming Hezbollah with the Lebanese Army. Egypt worries about its “red lines” in Sudan. UN report on earlier notorious RSF attack on displacement camp finds over 1,000 killed, 319 by summary execution. A Sudan expert says as many as 300,000 may have died in Darfur and that two-thirds of the country is food insecure.
New from Drop Site: “Epstein, Israel, and the CIA: How the Iran-Contra Planes Landed at Les Wexner’s Base—Jeffrey Epstein helped Leslie Wexner repurpose the CIA’s Iran-Contra planes from arms smuggling to shipping lingerie.” Ahead of Congress’s December 19 deadline for releasing the Epstein files Friday, Drop Site released a massive investigation on Epstein, Iran-Contra, Les Wexner, and the CIA, available here.
Also new from Drop Site: “University of Michigan Regents Who Led the Charge Against Pro-Palestine Protestors Are Now Backing Prosecutor Karen McDonald’s Candidacy for State Attorney—like Dana Nessel before her, McDonald has received huge backing from Pro-Israel organizations, GOP contributors, and corporate donors.” A new report on Michigan’s state attorney election from Tom Perkins is now available here.
A petition from Drop Site, “Stand Against Governors’ Unconstitutional Attacks on Religious Freedom”: Following Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s nearly identical attack in November, Governor Ron DeSantis has become the second governor to issue an unconstitutional proclamation falsely declaring CAIR, America’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, a “foreign terrorist organization.” Drop Site has created a petition to stand against these attacks.
Programming note: This will be the last Drop Site Daily before our holiday break. We’ll be back on Monday, January 5, with regular coverage—thank you for reading, and we wish you a restful and safe holiday.
This is Drop Site Daily, our new, free daily news recap. We send it Monday through Friday.
The Genocide in Gaza
- Israeli attacks across Gaza: At least three Palestinians were killed by Israeli artillery fire in eastern Khan Younis, according to Al-Aqsa TV. Israeli forces carried out air attacks, artillery shelling and heavy gunfire across the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to Al Jazeera, with artillery shelling and heavy gunfire across eastern Khan Younis, the bombing of the Shujaiya neighborhood in Gaza City and airstrikes targeting Deir al-Balah.
- IPC report finds situation still severe in Gaza: Food security conditions have improved in the Gaza Strip and the spread of famine averted, but the situation remains critical with the enclave still facing starvation, the world’s leading authority on food crises, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), said in its latest report on Friday. Between October 16 and November 30, 2025, around 1.6 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above), including more than half a million people in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and over 100,000 people in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) who faced famine conditions. Acute malnutrition is at critical levels in Gaza Governorate and serious levels in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis governorates. “Despite the improved situation, the population of the Gaza Strip still faces high levels of acute food insecurity and acute malnutrition,” the report said. “In the coming months, the situation is expected to remain severe.”
- UN, international NGOs warn that Israeli restrictions endanger the delivery of aid: United Nations agencies and more than 200 international and local NGOs warned that Israel’s new registration regime for international aid groups could dismantle life-saving humanitarian operations in Gaza. In a statement, they claimed that the registration policy is forcing organizations out without a replacement for their services, and thus placing Palestinian lives at imminent risk. They report that dozens of groups face the prospect of deregistration by Dec. 31—jeopardizing roughly $1 billion in annual aid—and warned the impact would be “immediate and catastrophic.” As a result of the policy, one in three health facilities would be slated to close, 345 hospital beds would be lost, and all five inpatient centers treating children with severe acute malnutrition would be shut down. The statement also stressed that humanitarian access is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law, which Israel has failed to meet.
- MSF says Israel needs to let in more aid to save the lives of Gaza’s children: Doctors Without Borders urged Israeli authorities to urgently allow a large-scale increase of aid into Gaza, warning that “children are losing their lives because they lack the most basic items for survival.” The organization reported the death of a four-week-old infant on Wednesday, bringing the number of children who have frozen to death to five in a period of less than ten days, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense. “Babies are arriving at the hospital cold, with near-death vital signs,” MSF said. “Even our best efforts are not enough.”
- Witkoff to meet with representatives from Qatar, UAE, and Egypt on Friday: White House envoy Steve Witkoff will meet with senior officials from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey on Friday in Miami to discuss the next phase of the Gaza deal, according to several reports. The talks mark the highest-level U.S.-based meeting among the ceasefire’s mediators since the agreement was signed in October. The meetings come amid growing frustration over Israel’s repeated ceasefire violations: Qatar’s prime minister said Israel’s actions were putting mediators in an “embarrassing position,” and Hamas says it has documented roughly 25 ceasefire violations per day.
- This week’s winter storms killed a minimum of 18: Based on figures previously reported by Gaza’s Civil Defense, at least 18 people have been killed in Gaza in just over a week, including five children who froze to death. One survivor is 12-year-old Wessam Badran, who was pulled from the rubble after his family’s tent collapsed in heavy rain. Wessam survived the storms, but his entire family was killed. Sahat English spoke with him in a video available here: “I was scared,” he says, “I go to [what was] my home and start crying.”
- Doctor discusses the case of a Palestinian child in urgent need of medical evacuation: “If Taim dies after surviving the bomb, it will not be an accident. It will be a choice,” said Dr. Nada Abu Alrub, who treated six-year-old Taim AlNemer, who was critically wounded in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza and is now in urgent need of medical evacuation. Abu Alrub said Taim survived the bombing but sustained catastrophic injuries requiring surgical intervention unavailable in Gaza, and noted that Israel is blocking not only his evacuation, but the evacuation of 5,000 other children among more than 16,000 patients approved for medical transfer. She called for the immediate evacuation of wounded children, saying delays are turning survivable injuries into death sentences.
- Unexploded Israeli ordnance killed a child in Gaza and injured others: Three separate explosions from unexploded Israeli ordnance killed at least one child from the Al-Suri family in Nuseirat refugee camp and injured civilians elsewhere across Gaza on Thursday, sparking fires and damaging homes, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense. The agency warned that incidents involving unexploded munitions are increasing in residential areas, and it holds Israel, international organizations operating in Gaza, and the U.S. coordination mechanism responsible for failing to clear explosive remnants of war. Gaza’s Civil Defense says that repeated meetings with the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN mine-action officials have produced no results.
- Erdoğan says Turkey will “fight on every front” to ensure justice for Gaza: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Thursday that Turkey will continue to “fight on every front” to ensure what is happening in Gaza is not forgotten and that justice is served, saying Ankara “stands firmly with the Palestinian people, unwavering and unbowed,” and will keep “speaking the truth” about Israel’s actions, which he has repeatedly described as atrocities and genocide.
West Bank and Israel
- Israel’s Supreme Court rejects petition to prevent the demolition of buildings in Nur Shams: Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected a petition by the Adalah Human Rights Center seeking to halt the demolition of 25 buildings in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera reports. The decision clears the way for demolitions, which are set to begin this week, and will displace hundreds of Palestinians. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said nearly half of the camp’s buildings were already damaged or destroyed before the latest demolition order and said that the demolitions are part of a broader Israeli campaign to permanently reshape and control refugee camps in the north, which is justified by claims of “military necessity.”
U.S. News
- U.S. kills five more people in boat strikes: The U.S. military announced it killed five people in two strikes on two boats in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday. “A total of five male narco-terrorists were killed during these actions—three in the first vessel and two in the second vessel,” U.S. Southern Command said in an online post. The latest strikes in international waters bring the death toll from the U.S. campaign to over 100.
- U.S. sanctions two ICC judges for forwarding cases against Israel: The United States has sanctioned two International Criminal Court judges for allowing war crimes cases involving Israel to proceed, accusing the court of acting “illegitimately” by asserting its jurisdiction without requesting Israel’s consent and warning it will impose “significant and tangible consequences” on anyone seeking to hold Israeli or U.S. officials legally accountable. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry, and leading Israeli human rights organizations have all said Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to a deliberate attempt to destroy a population in whole or in part, meeting the legal definition of genocide, a crime subject to prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
- Supposed Brown gunman found dead, reportedly responsible for the murder of an MIT professor as well: The gunman responsible for the shooting at Brown University and the killing days later of an MIT professor was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a New Hampshire storage facility, authorities said Thursday, ending a five-day manhunt. Prosecutors identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a former Brown physics graduate student and Portuguese national, who they say acted alone and specifically targeted MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, with whom he had a prior academic connection, though the motive for either crime remains unknown.
- Trump administration suspends the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery Program: The Trump administration has suspended the U.S. Diversity Visa lottery program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Wednesday, under the direction of President Donald Trump. The move follows disclosures that Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the primary suspect in the Brown and MIT shootings, entered the United States through the program in 2017 before later obtaining permanent residency. The Diversity Visa program, created by Congress in the 1990s, allocates up to 55,000 visas annually. Given that it is mandated by federal law, its suspension will likely face legal challenges.
- Trump administration seeks to block physicians from assisting in minors’ gender transitions: The Trump administration proposed sweeping new rules Thursday that would sharply curtail gender transition care for minors by barring providers who offer such services from participating in Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health programs, according to reporting from the Washington Post. If finalized, the regulations would effectively eliminate most youth transition care nationwide. Medical associations condemned the move as political interference in patient-physician decision-making, while civil rights groups and Democratic state officials promised to contest the changes.
- Trump admin plans further crackdown on “left-wing terrorism”: The Trump administration is launching a broad campaign to target what it calls left-wing domestic terrorism, the Washington Post reports, directing federal agencies to hand over intelligence on “Antifa” and related organizations to the FBI for potential investigations. The effort has prompted concern about the surveillance of lawful political activity, with observers warning that it could further entrench speech-suppression and increase the rolls on federal watch lists.
- Emails detail Noam Chomsky’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein: Emails and documents released by the U.S. House Oversight Committee in November 2025 show that Noam Chomsky, now 96, remained in contact with Jeffrey Epstein for years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, holding meetings with Epstein and corresponding with him at least until 2017. An undated letter attributed to Chomsky describes Epstein facilitating high-level discussions and introductions—including to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak—and newly released photos from Epstein’s estate show Chomsky with Epstein aboard his private plane, with Chomsky characterizing the relationship as a “most valuable experience” centered on “intellectual exchanges.”
- Micron migrates into the AI market: After receiving billions in taxpayer subsidies, Micron is exiting the consumer electronics market to focus exclusively on supplying AI companies and data-centers, a move critics warn will drive up prices for household electronics. By ending its “Crucial” line of DRAM and SSD products, Micron leaves the global memory market effectively consolidated into a duopoly between Samsung and SK Hynix, reducing competition as prices have already surged roughly 170% in the past year. The shift comes as Micron’s stock has jumped about 180% this year, and as the company continues to receive massive public subsidies under the CHIPS Act to support semiconductor production. Read more about this from The Lever here.
- Trump signs executive order reclassifying cannabis: President Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing federal agencies to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I classification—the most restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act, alongside heroin and ecstasy—to a Schedule III classification, which would pave the way for the Food and Drug Administration to study its medicinal uses. “This action has been requested by American patients suffering from extreme pain, incurable diseases, aggressive cancers, seizure disorders, neurological problems and more, including numerous veterans with service-related injuries, and older Americans who live with chronic medical problems that severely degrade their quality of life,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Thursday.
International News
- 16 killed in Kordofan: At least 16 people have been killed in an artillery bombardment of the besieged city of Dilling in Sudan’s Kordofan region, according to the Sudan Doctors Network, a medical monitoring group. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allies in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North have shelled residential areas of Dilling over the past two days, according to the group. More than 50,000 people have fled Kordofan since late October, when the RSH captured a major army base in the region, according to the International Organization for Migration.
- Egypt says developments in Sudan have crossed its “red lines”: Egypt said developments in Sudan have crossed “red lines” affecting its national security, following talks in Cairo between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Sudanese Army Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan Tribune reports. The Egyptian presidency said those “red lines” include preserving Sudan’s territorial integrity, preventing secession, and safeguarding state institutions along Egypt’s southern border. Cairo rejected the Rapid Support Forces’ declaration of a parallel governing authority in Darfur and expressed concern with any potential unilateral actions that might threaten Nile Basin water security.
- The RSF killed at least 1,013 civilians during a spring assault on a displacement camp, UN OHCHR says: The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces killed at least 1,013 civilians, 318 of whom were summarily executed, during a three-day assault in April 2025 on the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur. The revised toll was over three times as great as earlier estimates. OHCHR also documented 66 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence involving 104 victims. The camp had been under a months-long siege, with RSF forces blocking food, water, medical aid, and humanitarian relief, which forced civilians to survive on smuggling and eating animal feed. The April attack forced more than 406,000 people from their homes, at least 56,000 of them into eastern Chad, and could constitute war crimes, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
- Sudan scholar says 300,000 may have died in Darfur, and two-thirds of the country faces food insecurity: Sudan expert Dr. Khaled Medani of McGill University said an estimated 300,000 people have been killed across Darfur, with two-thirds of the country—around 30 million people—now facing food insecurity as famine spreads, according to remarks he made on The Majority Report. Medani estimated that about 150,000 were killed in attacks on El-Fasher alone.
- French, American, and Saudi officials discuss their plans to disarm Hezbollah with Lebanese army chief: French, U.S., and Saudi officials held talks in Paris with Lebanese Army Chief Rudolf Heikal on the topic of disarming Hezbollah, as well as to discuss a mechanism which might channel international support to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), The New Arab reports. The meeting agreed to convene a February conference to boost funding and political backing for the LAF, with aid explicitly conditioned on progress toward Hezbollah’s disarmament and enforcement of the 2024 U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Israel. French officials said the LAF would be positioned as Lebanon’s sole legitimate armed force. Critics warn that tying aid to disarmament risks politicizing the LAF and deepening the country’s persistent political instability.
- Israeli representative accuses Hezbollah of preparing for war, but offers no evidence for his claims: Asked by Sky News why Israel was violating its Lebanese ceasefire, Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon accused Hezbollah of rebuilding military infrastructure, restocking bunkers, and smuggling weapons and cash into Lebanon, but offered no evidence for these claims. The United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon, which has a substantial presence in southern Lebanon, said it has found no evidence of Hezbollah regrouping, reporting only old, abandoned weapons caches and unexploded ordnance dating to earlier conflicts.
- Saudi military prepares to engage with UAE-backed Yemeni separatists: As many as 20,000 Saudi-backed forces are amassing near Yemen’s eastern border, as the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) has made controversial territorial gains in the oil-rich region of Hadramaut, according to reporting from The Guardian. The STC, which is using its advance to push demands for a re-division of Yemen into north and south, has said it will not withdraw from its newly acquired territories, despite Saudi threats of possible airstrikes.
- Protests in Bangladesh over death of activist: Protests have erupted across Bangladesh after Sharif Osman Hadi, a prominent youth leader of the country’s 2024 pro-democracy uprising who was injured in an assassination attempt, died in a hospital in Singapore. After his death was announced, thousands of people took to the streets of Dhaka and other cities. Several buildings in the capital have been set on fire. Hadi was shot in the head last week by masked assailants as he was leaving a mosque in Dhaka. He had just launched his campaign for a seat in the country’s first parliamentary elections since the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the 2024 uprising. Hasina fled to India where she remains in self-imposed exile. She was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity last month. The UN’s human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement: “I urge the authorities to conduct a prompt, impartial, thorough and transparent investigation into the attack that led to Hadi’s death, and to ensure due process and accountability for those responsible.”
- Cambodia accuses Thailand of bombing Poipet: Cambodia’s defense ministry accused Thailand of bombing the casino hub of Poipet, a major land crossing between the two countries, saying Thai forces dropped two bombs on the town on Thursday, according to Al Jazeera. Thailand has not confirmed the strike, but Cambodian officials say multiple casinos have been damaged.
- Thailand and Cambodia agree to ASEAN observation: Thailand and Cambodia agreed to deploy an observer team from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in an effort to de-escalate their border conflict, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Wednesday, according to The Diplomat. Anwar said the ASEAN observers, led by Malaysia’s chief of defense force, will report ahead of a December 22 meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers, expressing cautious optimism about the effort. Thailand has reframed its renewed military campaign as targeting Cambodia-based online scamming networks, and China has begun to participate in diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict.
- Half of Haiti’s population goes hungry every day, UN estimates: About 5.7 million people—roughly half of Haiti’s population—are going hungry every day, the UN said. The country, which has seen rising violence and increasing gang control over its central urban areas, has seen huge spikes in internal displacement, which has doubled in a year (an estimated 1.4 million people are displaced, representing about 12% of the population). The UN also warned of the violence’s disproportionate impact on women and girls, with an average of 27 new cases of gender-based violence recorded per day in 2025, more than half involving sexual violence and roughly two-thirds of those cases involving gang rape.
- Mexican billionaire aligns himself with Trump: Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego is touting his invitation to President Donald Trump’s Christmas dinner in Washington, according to Drop Site correspondent José Luis Granados Ceja. A vocal critic of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Salinas Pliego has used his media empire to attack her and former President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and he has openly floated a 2030 presidential run. Pliego recently met with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. He will attend the dinner alongside ultra-conservative opposition figure Eduardo Verástegui—once viewed as MAGA’s closest ally in Mexico, but whose attempts at electoral politics faltered.
More From Drop Site
- Epstein, Iran-Contra, the CIA, and Les Wexner: After the Iran-Contra scandal broke in 1986, following the downing of a CIA-front aircraft owned by Southern Air Transport in Nicaragua, Jeffrey Epstein helped relocate SAT planes to Columbus, Ohio, where they were repurposed to service the retail empire of billionaire Leslie Wexner, who later granted Epstein power of attorney over his fortune. Epstein’s takeover of the SAT aircraft was one of his many links to the Iran-Contra networks: he knew Adnan Kashoggi, Douglas Leese, and, for a period, lived with lawyer John Stanaley Pottinger, who oversaw weapons transfers to Iran on behalf of the CIA. Drop Site’s newest Epstein investigation traces these connections, following the SAT planes, uncovering suppressed Columbus police records, and revealing leaked emails from Epstein’s own Yahoo inbox. Read the latest from Ryan Grim, Murtaza Hussain, and Harrison Berger here.
- Michigan’s state attorney race: The pro-Israel regents of University of Michigan (U-M) ignited controversy during the pro-Palestine campus protests by recruiting State Attorney General Dana Nessel to crackdown on the protesters. Now, members of U-M’s Board of Regents are making large donations to Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, a candidate who may replace Nessel. McDonald is running against Eli Savit, a progressive Jewish prosecutor in Ann Arbor. Read new reporting on Michigan’s state attorney election from Tom Perkins here.
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