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On Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy to Middle East Steve Witkoff arrived in Doha, Qatar for negotiations on extending the Gaza “ceasefire” and exchange of captives deal between Hamas and Israel. These talks come in the midst of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and as Israel has continued to violate the terms of the original agreement signed on January 19. This weekend Israel cut off electricity to the one remaining desalination plant in Gaza, which provided drinking water to some 500,000 Palestinians. Israel claims it is undertaking these actions in an effort to pressure Hamas, effectively admitting to carrying out an act of collective punishment on the civilian population.Israel has maintained that it does not intend to move the ceasefire to a formal second phase, which would include the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and an enduring cessation of military hostilities. Instead, Israel is pushing for a 60-day extension of the ceasefire with no guarantee of its withdrawal or an end to the war. It wants Hamas to release ten living Israeli captives upon signing such a deal. Hamas has said that it is negotiating in good faith and wants the U.S. and regional mediators from Qatar and Egypt to pressure Israel to abide by the original three phase deal. Israel remains irked that the Trump administration’s envoy on hostages Adam Boehler met directly with Hamas.In a wide-ranging discussion, Jeremy Scahill speaks to Dr. Sami Al-Arian, the director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University. In addition to discussing the Gaza negotiations, the strategies of Hamas, the U.S. and Israel, they also talk about the case of Palestinian organizer Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and green card holder who was snatched by federal agents on Saturday night and threatened with deportation.Al-Arian himself was prosecuted by the U.S. government during the George W. Bush administration, though the government failed to win a conviction at trial on the 52 count indictment it brought against him. Facing ongoing threats of prosecution, Al-Arian agreed to a plea deal and to voluntarily leave the U.S. He was deported in 2015. “It's incredible how American values, the American Constitution, American cherished principles have been shredded by this administration and former administrations,” says Al-Arian. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

With Phase 1 of the Gaza ceasefire deal set to expire Saturday with no agreement (yet) for its continuation, Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous discuss the recent developments with the negotiations, as well as Egypt’s role in possible Gaza reconstruction and governance paths. A forthcoming Arab League summit is expected to be centered around presenting an alternative plan to Trump’s threats to turn Gaza into a U.S.-owned “Middle East Riviera,” one which would not include the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians of Gaza.Abdel Kouddous has just returned from Lebanon and discusses his reporting from the devastated south of the country in the wake of Israel’s withdrawal. Sharif also speaks with a leading political figure in Hezbollah and member of the Lebanese parliament Dr. Ibrahim al-Moussawi about Trump’s demand that Hezbollah be expelled from the Lebanese government and the pledge by Lebanon’s new president that he will impose a monopoly on the use of arms, which suggests a plan to disarm Hezbollah. They also discuss the future of Hezbollah in the wake of the assassination and funeral of the group’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts.We're a fully reader-supported newsroom, which means our journalism depends on people like you. Find all our reporting at dropsitenews.com, and subscribe to the Drop Site News channel on any podcast platform. If our work matters to you, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution today. Your support keeps us independent and investigating. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

It has been three years since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, killing hundreds of thousands of people and destroying huge portions of the country. Now, the Trump administration has signaled that it wants to end the war in Ukraine, but there are significant questions and deep concerns about Trump’s plans for how to end the fighting.The Trump administration has signaled it wants Ukraine to pay back the U.S. for American financial support of the war. But there are fears now that the U.S. will impose a diplomatic agreement onto Ukraine that results in crushing economic debts, damaging the country, while doing little to permanently ending the conflict.Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain is joined by Rajan Menon, an expert on Ukraine and a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.Listen above or on the Drop Site News channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

On Thursday morning in Gaza, Palestinian resistance factions handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross the bodies of four Israeli captives. According to Hamas, all four of the Israeli citizens were killed in Israeli airstrikes.As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued his efforts to sabotage the Gaza ceasefire and exchange of captives deal, Hamas has begun putting out substantive public proposals of its own. Hamas says it is prepared to negotiate a comprehensive deal for Phase 2 that would include the return of all Israeli captives held in Gaza “as one package,” rather than the staggered weekly releases that have marked Phase 1 of the deal. In return, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups would require Israel to completely withdraw all of its forces from the Gaza Strip and for international mediators, including the U.S., to certify a permanent truce. Hamas also announced it would release all six living Israeli captives slated for exchange in Phase 1 on Saturday, saying it was evidence of the group’s flexibility and willingness to reach a viable deal.On this episode of Drop Site News’s podcast, Palestinian analyst Abdaljawad Omar, an adjunct professor at Birzeit university and a writer based in Ramallah, joins Jeremy Scahill for a wide-ranging discussion on the state of the ongoing negotiations. They also analyze the recent meetings of a range of Palestinian political parties and factions aimed at creating a national unity committee that could administer the Gaza Strip if the ceasefire holds and reconstruction begins. Omar also discusses President Donald Trump’s threat to attempt to forcibly expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to build a U.S.-owned Middle East “Riviera.” Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

This week, during a press briefing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump floated an idea for the U.S. to take ownership of the Gaza Strip, while expelling the surviving Palestinian population from the territory.While outlandish, Trump’s statement emboldened many on the Israeli right who continue to dream of eliminating the Palestinian population of the land through expulsions, siege, and mass killings.On this new episode of Drop Site News's podcast, Pankaj Mishra joins Murtaza Hussain for a discussion on the genocide in Gaza, how various regions of the world have responded to the genocide, and the broad historical context. Mishra’s latest book, “The World After Gaza: A History,” is out now.Listen above or on the Drop Site channel on Apple, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

The official death toll in Gaza continues to rise every day with Israel engaging in sporadic attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, killing dozens since the “ceasefire” agreement came into effect on January 19. The death toll also climbs every day for two other reasons: bodies retrieved from the rubble, and people who die of their wounds. The health ministry puts the number of confirmed dead at over 47,500 — though it acknowledges this figure as a vast undercount as it only tallies the number of bodies brought to hospitals and morgues in Gaza that are recorded the ministry. The official number of wounded is over 111,000 and people in Gaza continue to die from those wounds every day.The health care system in Gaza came under a severe and systematic attack by the Israeli military, with nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals completely destroyed or barely functioning. The World Health Organization says that an estimated 14,000 Palestinians need to be medically evacuated to receive treatment outside of Gaza, including 2,500 children who are at imminent risk of death.To discuss the real death toll in Gaza, the complications around medical evacuations, the war’s effect on children, and the importance of bearing witness, Drop Site News journalists Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Murtaza Hussein speak with two doctors who traveled to Gaza multiple times on medical missions to provide emergency health care during the war: Dr. Mimi Sayed is an emergency medicine physician based in Olympia, Washington, who has completed two medical missions to Gaza, the last one ending on December 31. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is a general, trauma, and critical care surgeon based in California. He has provided medical care in conflict zones worldwide, including Palestine, Ukraine, Haiti, and Zimbabwe. He was last in Gaza in April and is returning in March. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Israeli prime minister and international fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu is the first foreign leader to be hosted in Washington, D.C., by President Donald Trump. They are meeting in the wake of a barrage of chaotic and conflicting messages by Trump on what he believes should happen in Gaza and the West Bank.Without a doubt, Trump wants to preside over a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, though the Saudis have said they will not enter into such a deal without a credible process to create an independent Palestinian state. Israeli officials have made clear Netanyahu wants to push Trump to fully embrace his position that Hamas should be wiped out completely and there are indications the Israeli leader does not want the so-called ceasefire to move to the second phase—which envisions a withdrawal of Israeli forces, further exchange of captives and discussions on a large reconstruction plan for Gaza—or toward an actual rebuilding of Gaza.
All of this happens as Palestinians continue to return to an apocalyptic scene in the north of the Gaza Strip and Israel continues to intensify its attacks against the West Bank. Mouin Rabbani and Dr. Annelle Sheline join Jeremy Scahill to discuss. Mouin Rabbani is the co-editor of Jadaliyya and non-resident fellow at both DAWN and Middle East Council on Global Affairs, and a former UN official who worked as a special adviser on Israel-Palestine for the International Crisis Group. Dr. Annelle Sheline is a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute. She served as a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State until resigning in March 2024 over the Biden administration's Gaza policy. To support Drop Site News, become a paid subscriber or consider making a one-time or recurring 501c3 tax deductible donation. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

In a wide-ranging interview, Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, speaks with Drop Site News journalists Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous about the latest developments in the Gaza “ceasefire” deal, Israel’s large-scale military operation in the West Bank, national unity talks between Palestinian political factions, President Trump’s plans to persuade Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, and much more. Barghouti is a former presidential candidate who was elected to parliament in 2006 and has been a leading Palestinian political figure for over two decades. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Sina Toossi, a Senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy and an expert on Iran, discusses the fraught U.S.-Iran relationship shaped by Trump's nuclear deal withdrawal. He highlights Iran's accelerated nuclear capabilities and internal debates on weaponization. Toossi emphasizes the challenges of potential military action against Iran and calls for urgent diplomatic efforts amidst rising tensions and regional alliances. He also touches on Iran's shifting political landscape, especially concerning future leadership dynamics.

In this special breaking news episode, senior Hamas official Basem Naim speaks to Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill about the Gaza “ceasefire” that went into effect Sunday. Naim said that Hamas intends to uphold its side of the deal—despite claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he received assurances from both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump that Israel can resume its war against Gaza after the first phase of the agreement. “What kind of side deals they have done, this is their business,” he says. “But what I can say here: the American administration led by Biden, we consider complicit—directly complicit—in the genocide.” Naim discusses why Hamas considers the agreement an achievement for the armed resistance in Gaza, discusses the role of Trump in the negotiations, and talks about how Israel sabotaged previous negotiations over the exact deal that was signed this week. Drop Site also asked Naim whether Hamas still stands by its decision to launch the October 7 attacks, given the horrifying death toll inflicted on the Palestinians of Gaza. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe