Drop Site News

Sharif Abdel Kouddous, journalist who memorializes Palestinian reporter Hossam Shabat. Alexis Daloumis, on-the-ground documentary reporter in Suleymaniyah covering Kurdish-region dynamics. Trita Parsi, Iran analyst at the Quincy Institute on geopolitics and energy. They discuss shifting war phases, disputed negotiation claims, Kurdish regional tensions, airstrikes and casualties, and how the conflict is reshaping energy and sanctions dynamics.

Emran Feroz, on-the-ground journalist covering Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict and a deadly Kabul hospital strike. Dr. Fawad Azadi, Tehran-based academic on Iranian politics and security. They unpack alleged Israeli assassination strikes and Iran’s posture, disputed outreach to Iranian officials, Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, and the widening regional and cross-border violence.

Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and spokesperson, defends Iran’s actions and rejects claims it planned an imminent attack. He discusses alleged strikes on Iranian leaders, civilian casualties, interrupted negotiations and accusations of false-flag attacks. He also addresses regional destabilization, regime-change fears and the prospects for negotiation versus all-out war.

Karim Makdisi, associate professor of international politics at the American University of Beirut and co-host of Makdisi Street, offers on-the-ground perspective from Beirut. He discusses Hezbollah’s decision to enter the fight, Israeli strikes across Lebanon and Iran, and how regional strategies aim to weaken Iran and reshape power dynamics. Short, urgent takes on escalation, displacement, and looming wider war.

The U.S. and Israel continue to attack Iran in a massive bombing campaign that President Donald Trump characterized as the start of a regime change war. Tehran has launched an unprecedented series of retaliatory attacks at U.S. military bases and other targets across the region and has hit Israel with a series of intense missile strikes. There are widespread reports that the US-led attacks have killed senior Iranian leadership. In this special Drop Site News broadcast, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim speak with Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American analyst and author who served as an advisor to former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, and Ali Abunimah, one of the founders of Electronic Intifada, who is in Amman, Jordan.Read all of Drop Site’s coverage of Iran here. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Ahead of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, there is a flurry of activity taking place inside the White House and Pentagon as Trump continues to deliberate whether he will authorize military strikes on Iran. A new round of talks between the U.S. and Iran are scheduled for Thursday in Geneva.Iranian officials tell Drop Site they are showing an “almost unbelievable level of flexibility” in talks with the U.S. to avert war, saying Tehran has “decided to exercise maximum flexibility on the nuclear issue, but only on the strict condition that it would genuinely prevent the outbreak of war.”Officials said Iran is directly addressing U.S. concerns on the nuclear issue with concrete proposals, and asserting a willingness to expand talks to other issues once a deal to avert imminent conflict has been concluded. Although talks are scheduled for Thursday, the prospects for a deal that would halt the U.S. drive to war remain fragile.Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain join Ryan Grim to discuss the latest.In the second half of the broadcast, Drop Site’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous discusses a new joint investigation by the independent research groups Earshot and Forensic Architecture on the Israeli military’s massacre of 15 Palestinian aid workers in southern Gaza on March 23, 2025. The report, based on eyewitness testimony and audio and visual analysis, found that Israeli soldiers fired nearly a thousand bullets at the aid workers—with at least eight shots fired at point blank range in execution-style killings.Read all of Drop Site’s coverage of Iran here.Read about the 2025 massacre of Palestinian aid workers here. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

With a U.S. military build-up unprecedented since the 2003 Iraq invasion underway in the Middle East, Iran may soon find itself in the cross-hairs of a massive military onslaught.President Donald Trump has publicly said that diplomatic channels with Iran remain open and Iranian diplomats say they are in the process of drafting a document responding to U.S. demands recently presented in the indirect talks in Geneva, Switzerland. But several former senior U.S. officials have told Drop Site that the size and scope of the military deployment indicate a high likelihood of a U.S. attack. One former senior intelligence official who informally advises the Trump administration put the chances of a strike at 80-90 percent.Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill spoke to former senior U.S. Middle East diplomat Robert Malley, a lead negotiator of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Malley has served under three U.S. presidents and has extensive experience negotiating with Iranian officials. He is currently a Senior Fellow and Lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs and author, with Hussein Agha, of “Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine.” Scahill and Malley also discuss the first meeting of the so-called Board of Peace and the ongoing Israeli war against Gaza.Read Drop Site’s coverage of the U.S. buildup here.Subscribe to Drop Site: https://www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

On Friday, the High Court in the United Kingdom ruled on Friday that the government’s ban on the pro-Palestine direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization was unlawful. The ruling marked a major legal victory for the group, which was founded in 2020 and campaigns against companies complicit in “the occupation, apartheid and genocide of Palestine,” with a focus on Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. Huda Ammori, the 31-year old British-Palestinian co-founder of Palestine Action, spoke to Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous about the movement’s strategy, rooted in direct action to physically disrupt and dismantle the war machine that facilitates the genocide and occupation in Palestine. “As a Palestinian, the best moment of my life was being on top of an Israeli weapons factory with a sledgehammer being able to destroy that site. And knowing, that just that by being there and causing damage, they would have to shut down. Not just while I was there, but for weeks after.”Also on the livestream, Ryan Grim spoke with Carrie Prejean Boller on her ouster from Trump’s religious liberty commission. Get full access to Drop Site News at www.dropsitenews.com/subscribe

Sharif Abdel-Kouddous, Gaza reporter offering on-the-ground analysis, and Jonathan Whittall, former senior UN official turned political analyst, discuss leaked plans for a U.S.-backed Board to govern Gaza. They outline the Board’s sweeping powers, eligibility rules tying aid to compliance, privatized reconstruction, biometric controls, physical barriers like the “yellow line”, and proposed humanitarian zones and policing arrangements.

Kaveh Rostamkhani, a documentary photographer and essayist on the ground in Tehran, shares his harrowing firsthand accounts of the recent unrest in Iran. He discusses the complexity of the protests, fuelled by economic despair and manipulated by various factions. As internet blackouts hinder communication, Kaveh sheds light on the orchestrated escalation of violence and the devastating death toll, urging for independent investigations. With a call for civil reforms, he highlights the need for dialogue to avoid further bloodshed amidst external geopolitical powers.