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🇾🇪💢 Ansarallah declares maritime embargo on Saudi Arabia Yemen’s Ansarallah announced an immediate maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia, saying it was responding to the kingdom’s blockade with one of its own under the principle of “an eye for an eye.” The Yemeni Armed Forces said Saudi Arabia has besieged Yemen for nearly twelve years, plundering its resources and closing its ports and airports by land, sea and air, and that the latest escalation began with the strike on Sana’a International Airport. It affirmed the right to “respond to the blockade with a blockade” and warned that any further Saudi escalation would be met with “comprehensive and decisive” force. The announcement follows mass mobilization rallies across Yemen and delivers on the threat Ansarallah made to Drop Site last week to block Saudi access to the Bab al-Mandab strait.
🇱🇧 U.S. Announces Start of “Pilot Zone” Operations in Southern Lebanon The State Department says operations began Monday in the southern Lebanese villages of Froun, Srifa, and Zawtar al-Gharbiya under the U.S.-brokered Trilateral Framework between Lebanon and Israel. The framework calls for the Lebanese Army to take security control in designated “pilot zones,” the disarmament and dismantling of Hezbollah and other armed groups’ infrastructure, and the progressive withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon. Washington said the launch was a result of last week’s Lebanon-Israel talks in Rome, where the two sides agreed on guidelines for implementing the pilot-zone process. Israel continues to enforce a unilateral "security zone" extending roughly 10 kilometers (six miles) deep into southern Lebanon, maintaining an active military occupation of over 600 square kilometers of Lebanese territory.
🚨 43% of Gaza’s Kidney Failure Patients Have Died Since Israel’s War Began Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital spokesperson Khalil al-Daqran says 43% of kidney failure patients in Gaza have died since the war began, as Israel-imposed deliberate shortages of medicines and medical supplies cripple dialysis care. Around half of the equipment needed to operate Gaza’s dialysis units is now out of service, further threatening patients who depend on regular treatment, al-Daqran said.
🟢 Hamas elects Khalil al-Hayya as head of political bureau Hamas announced Monday that it has elected Khalil al-Hayya as head of its political bureau, formally filling the post left vacant since Israel killed Yahya Sinwar in October 2024. Al-Hayya, 65, born in Gaza City, has been Hamas’s lead negotiator in the indirect ceasefire talks with Israel. He helped negotiate the truces to end the 2014 war as well as the October 2025 deal backed by the US. Al-Hayya was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006 and since Sinwar’s killing, has led Hamas in Gaza from exile. He defeated Khaled Meshaal, the veteran former Hamas chief, and is expected to formally assume the role next week. A senior Hamas official told AFP the political bureau will meet in Istanbul within days to form committees and restructure the movement’s leadership bodies, dissolving the five-member council that has run Hamas since Sinwar’s killing. Israel has killed four of al-Hayya’s seven sons: two in strikes targeting him in Gaza in 2008 and 2014, one in the September 2025 strike on the Hamas negotiating delegation in Doha, and Azzam al-Hayya, 23, in a Gaza City strike this May. Two of his grandchildren, aged eight and two, were killed in an April 2025 strike on a school sheltering displaced families.
@bonzerbarry IRGC: The ignorant president of the United States once again revealed his foolishness last night, stating that only a few missiles and drones remain for Iran and that their numbers are dwindling. The murderer president of the United States should know that, by God's grace, even if this war lasts for several years, until the very last day, our missiles and drones will rain down on American criminals.
🇵🇸 3 Palestinians Killed, Dozens Wounded in Israeli Attacks Across Gaza on Monday 🔸An Israeli drone struck a civilian vehicle near al-Ghafri Junction in Gaza City on Monday, wounding up to 14 people in that strike alone, including children, according to local reports. The Palestinian Red Crescent said seven of the wounded were taken to al-Saraya Field Hospital, including three in critical condition. 🔸In Khan Younis, a separate Israeli drone strike hit a civilian vehicle near the British Hospital in al-Mawasi, killing three Palestinians and wounding others. 🔸Israeli forces also shot and wounded a Palestinian in Jabalia, and opened fire and shelled eastern Zeitoun and eastern Khan Younis.
⚡️NEW at @DropSiteNews : Ansarallah Vows to Block Saudi Access to Bab al-Mandab After Strikes on Sana’a The first Saudi airstrikes against Ansarallah in four years threaten to upend their tenuous ceasefire, just as the truce between the U.S. and Iran is crumbling over the Strait of Hormuz. Story by @ionacraig
🚨 The IRGC says it struck and destroyed several U.S. military sites and weapons systems in Kuwait in its sixth wave of “Operation Nasr 2.” In a statement addressed to the Kuwaiti public, the IRGC claimed missile and drone attacks hit: ➤ A satellite communications center ➤ Missile and air-defense radar ➤ A Patriot air-defense complex ➤ A U.S. military outpost ➤ HIMARS launch platforms The IRGC said the strikes were retaliation for U.S. attacks on southern Iran, including the bombing of a wheat warehouse in Hoveizeh and a mineral-water factory in Dehloran. It said Kuwaitis were not the target, but urged them to expel U.S. forces: “We expect you to seize every opportunity to destroy American institutions and to liberate Islamic lands from the bases of the occupying American forces,” the statement said. The U.S. and Kuwaiti governments have not yet confirmed the claimed damage.
⚡️ Iran’s attacks on tankers are choking off a U.S.-led workaround that kept oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to reignite one of the worst energy shocks in decades, the Wall Street Journal reports. Two of the three supertankers struck Tuesday were part of a “shuttle run” fleet ferrying crude from Gulf terminals to ports outside the strait, including Fujairah, where it was transferred to ships bound for global markets. The system had been moving about 3.5 million barrels a day, roughly a third of crude exports through Hormuz, often under U.S. Navy escort. But the death of a sailor Tuesday has rattled crews, and some captains are now refusing to transit. gCaptain says the strikes also shattered the industry’s assumption that Oman’s coast offered a safer route. With the full strait now exposed, war-risk premiums are likely to rise, traffic could fall further, and pressure will grow for naval escorts. Brent is near $85 a barrel after climbing more than 10% this week.
🎥 “The second the occupation ceases to exist is the second that the need to resist ceases to exist.” Asked by Rep. Ro Khanna to weigh in after his exchange with Jeremy Scahill over Palestinians’ right to armed resistance, Drop Site’s Maysa Mustafa, a Palestinian American, said Palestinians are denied the ability to defend themselves against Israeli soldiers and settlers, while the violence of Israel’s occupation is ever-present and unavoidable. “Armed resistance doesn’t exist just because these are violent people,” Mustafa said. “We’ve tried the UN. We’ve tried the Oslo Accords. We’ve tried everything.” @maysamustafa | @RoKhanna
“But they kill every Palestinian. They target every Palestinian, whether a small child or an adult. Their goal is to eliminate the entire Palestinian population.” — A relative of 10-year-old Motaz Marwan Abu Shaar, who was shot and killed while playing inside his family’s tent today. Full story below ⬇️
🎥 “Was he holding a pistol, or a rifle? What was he doing? He was playing in the tent… his mother’s only son.” The Israeli military shot 10-year-old Motaz Marwan Abu Shaar in the heart in Gaza today, killing him, his family told Drop Site. Motaz’s aunt, Nawal Abu Shaar, said he was playing inside the family’s tent when he was struck. His father, brother, and grandmother had previously been killed while displaced in the Miraj area, forcing the surviving family members to flee in search of safety. “There is no safe place,” his uncle, Faraj Abu Shaar, said. “There are no safe tents, no safe zones, and no humanitarian zones.” “Does he not have the right to live?” Nawal asked. “Does he not have the right to play, learn, grow up, and become an adult?” ⭕️ Filmed by Drop Site contributor Mohamed Ahmed at Nasser Medical Complex.
💢 NEW: Gaza’s Interior Ministry says a fresh Israeli strike on a police checkpoint west of Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has killed Col. Muhammad Marwan Salem, director of the Jabalia refugee camp police station, along with a number of officers and personnel. Israel has systematically murdered scores of Palestinian civil police officers since agreeing to a ceasefire last October. Both the WFP and UNICEF had credited the Gaza police with finally bringing security to humanitarian distribution. Israel also killed about 15-30% of the entire Palestinian police force, some 2,800 officers and civil security personnel, during the height of its genocidal campaign from October 2023 to October 2025. 🎥 Footage of the aftermath of the Israeli strike, by Mohammed Abu Louay. The ministry described the attack today as a “massacre.”
⭕️ Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened the International Criminal Court on Monday, saying the U.S. would “teach the ICC the full meaning of American resolve” and accusing it of seeking to become the “unaccountable arbiter of a new global law” that could arrest U.S. citizens. The court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza, but has not indicted or issued warrants for any American. Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, said Rubio’s “slick rhetoric” masked a bid to let Trump “commit war crimes with impunity,” including on the soil of ICC member states, undercutting a court meant to deliver justice regardless of a perpetrator’s power.
U.S. Central Command @CENTCOM At 4:45 p.m. ET today, U.S. Central Command began launching the third consecutive night of strikes against Iran, at the Commander in Chief's direction. These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
⭕️ Democratic Majority for Israel, an influential pro-Israel advocacy and fundraising group, released a video Saturday of Kathy Manning, its board chair, attacking Rep. Ro Khanna over his account of being detained by armed Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, calling his trip as a political “stunt.” The video, posted on X, has already drawn ~250,000 views. The attack follows Khanna’s account of an incident on July 8 near Khirbet Zanuta, a Palestinian hamlet whose residents were forcibly displaced by settler raids. Khanna, a California Democrat exploring a 2028 presidential bid, said masked men with U.S.-made M4 rifles blocked his delegation’s vans for more than an hour, and that Israeli soldiers sided with the settlers when they arrived. His group was released after calls to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, he said. The Israeli military, which routinely misrepresents facts and minimizes the violence carried out by its troops and by illegal settlers in the West Bank, disputed his account, saying troops dispersed the settlers and reopened the road, and no one was detained. Pro-Israel figures have moved to discredit Khanna rather than the violent settlers. Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Leiter, suggested without evidence that Khanna timed his video to distract from his earlier support for Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who dropped out amid sexual misconduct allegations. Former U.S. envoy David Friedman accused Khanna of “self-victimization.” Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson broke with them, faulting the U.S. ambassador to Israel for staying silent while an American lawmaker was threatened by “foreign terrorists carrying American rifles.” DMFI is known for backing Democratic candidates and spending heavily to defeat progressive, Israel-critical challengers in party primaries,
⭕️ A statement from the IRGC Public Relations Office said: “The only way to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to vessel traffic is for the aggressive U.S. military to end its interventions in the strait and respect the sovereignty of countries over their own coastal waters.” It added: “The continuation of these interventions will lead to even greater disruptions affecting the global oil and gas sector.”
🇮🇷 Iran has begun rolling out planned power outages nationwide as its power plants and electricity grid operate at maximum capacity, the director of customer affairs at Tavanir, the state electricity company, said on Monday. 🔹The outage schedule is announced two days in advance, and the plan for the next two days has been released across the country, the official said. 🔹The cuts come as an intense heat wave drives up demand, with the energy ministry warning that consumption could exceed 75,500 megawatts in the coming days and urging the public to cut usage by at least 10 percent. Temperatures in parts of southern Iran are forecast to top 50 degrees Celsius. 🔹Tavanir’s chief told parliament on July 12 that more than 2,000 points in the grid were damaged during the 40-day war with Israel and the United States. 🔹Western critics point to years of underinvestment and heavy grid use for state-linked cryptocurrency mining have deepened a shortfall that exceeds 20,000 megawatts, roughly a third of national demand. Iran says international economic sanctions, a form of "economic terrorism," prevents them” country from buying modern technology or importing components to upgrade thermal plants.
💢 BREAKING: One person has been killed in a shooting involving ICE in Biddeford, Maine, according to Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau. He said the shooting occurred Monday morning and that Maine State Police and the Department of Public Safety were at the scene gathering information. He expects the FBI to investigate. Authorities have not yet released details about the victim, the circumstances surrounding the shooting, or the precise role played by ICE personnel. Video of the aftermath ⬇️
⭕️ Israeli ceasefire violations continue across south Lebanon with shelling, a drone attack, and home demolitions An Israeli drone dropped an incendiary bomb on Al-Tahra hill in the town of Kfar Reman in the district of Nabatieh on Monday, while intermittent Israeli artillery shelling targeted the area between Nabatieh al-Fawqa and Kfartebnit, according to the state’s National News Agency (NNA). In Marjayoun, the Israeli army demolished and burned homes in the southern neighbourhoods of the border town of Hadatha. 🎥 More details from @cbonneauimages below ⬇️
🔹Jeremy Scahill on Lindsey Graham’s legacy: “Since 9/11 in particular, Lindsey Graham emerged as a man who was never able to leave the Cold War behind. His worldview was very much shaped by this sort of public projection of the idea that there were communists hiding under every rock and stone and inside of every closet, waiting to pop out and destroy the American pie and American greatness. And in many ways, he sort of relegated himself to a somewhat inconsequential footnote in history because he was so predictably and cartoonishly slavish to the agenda of America as an imperial force in the world.” 🎥 Watch the clip from Democracy Now below.
Drop Site @DropSiteNews · 10h 💢 NEW: Iran’s IRGC claimed it struck the U.S.-operated Prince Hassan Air Base in Jordan with several ballistic missiles, destroying a command-and-control center and hangars housing MQ-9 drones. In a statement carried by Fars, the IRGC accused Washington of pressuring Oman and encouraging several vessels to use what Iran described as an unauthorized route through the southern Strait of Hormuz. It said the Iranian navy stopped the ships with a “decisive response.” The IRGC said the U.S. then launched airstrikes on Iranian coastal bases and communications towers along the country’s southern coast. Iran responded by targeting U.S. military facilities across the Gulf, beginning with key infrastructure at Prince Hassan Air Base.
⚡️ New: Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says “the era of one-sided deals is OVER,” posting the MOU’s text with Iran’s privileges highlighted: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts” for free passage of commercial vessels through Hormuz, “for 60 days only.” “We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking,” he wrote today. The message lands after a week of renewed US strikes and Washington’s reimposition of certain oil sanctions, both violations of the deal, and roughly a month before the free-transit window expires in mid-August
WATCH: “The IDF is lying.” Rep. @RoKhanna disputed the Israeli military’s account of his detention in the occupied West Bank, saying armed settlers brandished M4 rifles, kicked his delegation’s van, mocked them, and blocked their path. Khanna said four Israeli soldiers later arrived, told the delegation’s translator that they were “on the side of the settlers,” and continued to detain them. The group was released after contacting the U.S. Embassy and being held for approximately 75 minutes. “How dare they mistreat people with an American passport that way,” Khanna said, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to investigate the settlers and the four soldiers involved.
WATCH: “Israel, unlike our neighbors, is a democracy and a country of law.” Asked about Rep. @RoKhanna being blocked by armed settlers in the occupied West Bank while Israeli soldiers failed to intervene (and even sided with them according to Ro Khanna), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the settler community and portrayed the attackers as an isolated group. “There are 150 juvenile delinquents that are not part of that community... I don’t want vigilantes of any kind, and we are working to put them under the law,” Netanyahu said, claiming that “99.9 percent” of settlers are law-abiding citizens.
🇺🇸🇵🇸 “If they can do this to an American congressman, what can they do to Palestinians?” Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) was detained for over an hour near Khirbet Zanuta in the occupied West Bank after armed settlers carrying American-made M4 rifles surrounded his van. Khanna said the IDF soldiers who arrived knew an American congressman was in the vehicle and still sided with the settlers rather than helping. Khanna’s group was only released after the U.S. Embassy intervened. During his days in the West Bank, including Hebron, Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, and Turmus Ayya, Khanna says he witnessed a “culture of impunity.” He visited the school in Al-Mughayyir, where a 14-year-old boy and a 32-year-old man were killed by settler gunfire earlier this year, and met with Palestinian American families who’ve lost children to Israeli military and settler violence, including the family of Mohammed Zaher Ibrahim, a 16-year-old American citizen from Florida who was held in Israeli prison for over nine months without trial and returned home starving. Khanna compared the West Bank to the days of Jim Crow in the United States, and says that Americans need to come to the West Bank and see “the apartheid in the West Bank with their own eyes.” 🎥 Report by @maysamustafa in the occupied West Bank with Congressman @RoKhanna
🔺 Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned Washington after two days of renewed US strikes: “America still hasn’t learned that bullying and breaking promises are no longer cost-free. Let me put it plainly: if you strike, you’ll get hit.” “The Strait of Hormuz will only open with ‘Iranian arrangements,’ not American threats,” he added. Ghalibaf, one of Iran’s two lead negotiators, spoke as the MOU neared collapse: after Iranian strikes on three tankers that defied its designated routes, the US hit more than 80 targets, revoked Iran’s oil sanctions waiver, a move Tehran calls a “blatant violation” of the deal, and struck again Wednesday as Iran targeted US bases in Bahrain and Kuwait.
Yesterday our post on Politico’s reporting on the sexual assault allegations against Graham Platner was intended to summarize reporting Ryan Grim discussed on Breaking Points regarding details Politico omitted from its story. The language of our post left the impression that text messages by Platner's accuser Jenny Racicot are relevant to whether she was raped or in any way justify the alleged assault she described. That was not the intention and is not the position of Drop Site or Ryan. We genuinely value the feedback and criticism we have received from many readers and have deleted the post.
🎥 “Ali Khamenei designed a state that by nature, its authority would be distributed in varieties of organs and would not be held by one person. Even though he had the last word in every major decision, he never took decisions without hearing all the factions and then finding a common ground to create consensus among them.” Professor Vali Nasr told Drop Site that the Islamic Republic today looks “nothing like any other state we know” and “nothing like other Middle East states that, much like the Shah’s regime, are top-down, one-man dictatorships.” Watch the clip ⬇️
⭕️ Axios, which has frequently published official U.S. and Israeli leaks throughout the war, reports that the White House is preparing for what could become a multi-day or even multi-week military campaign against Iran centered on the Strait of Hormuz after President Trump declared the U.S.-Iran ceasefire “over.” ➤ “We’re going to slap them a bit so they understand we’re not f*cking around”: A U.S. official told Axios the length of the campaign will depend on Tehran’s next moves. ➤ U.S. officials say reopening the Strait of Hormuz and restoring freedom of navigation has become the administration’s primary military objective, as Iran insists the waterway will only reopen on its own terms. ➤ Despite the escalation, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that Iranian officials had “called a little while ago” and “want to make a deal,” though Iran did not immediately confirm any direct outreach. ➤ ➤ Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance warned that if Iran attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz, “there’s going to be a response from the American military,” adding U.S. strikes “are just going to keep on happening until they open up that lane and stop shooting at ships.”
💢 Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had launched the “first stage” of retaliatory attacks against U.S. forces, claiming it targeted American military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain with a joint missile and drone operation. The IRGC says it struck Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, along with Jafair and Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain. The claims have not been independently verified. The IRGC warned that if the U.S. carries out further attacks, its response will expand to target additional American military bases across the region.c
🇮🇪 Ireland’s Dáil passed the Occupied Territories Bill through its final stage Tuesday without a vote, moving Ireland toward becoming the first EU country to legislate a ban on imports from Israeli settlements, per RTÉ. The bill heads to the Seanad next week and is expected to be law before mid-July, making settlement imports an offense under Ireland’s Customs Act, the Irish Times reports. 🔹The victory is heavily qualified. The government’s version bans only goods, roughly €200,000 a year in produce, by the Taoiseach’s estimate, while exempting services, which Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson noted make up about 70 percent of Ireland’s trade with Israel. 🔹Independent Senator Frances Black, who introduced the original bill covering both in 2018, watched from the gallery as opposition TDs accused the government of gutting her legislation, per the Irish Times. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has cited legal risk and potential damage to US multinationals in Ireland; the Irish Times reported that Ireland’s embassy in Washington warned of consequences if the bill passed. 🔹Hamas welcomed the passage in a statement as “a historic decision that aligns with international law,” calling it “a genuine expression of the Irish people’s heritage and their support for the justice of our national cause,” and urged parliaments worldwide to adopt similar legislation to further isolate Israel and hold its leaders accountable.