Tuesday, August 25, 2026 – Israel continues to strike Gaza despite “ceasefire.” Israel shoots 10-year-old Palestinian girl in the back, killing her in Gaza tent. Israeli forces seize UNRWA center in East Jerusalem, expel staff. Settler attacks and Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank. Iconic Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour passes at 79. Oil tanker struck off Omani coast. U.S. unveils latest wave of Iran sanctions. China warns U.S. sanctions on Iran’s trade partners will “only intensify tensions.” New York Times: U.S. prepares to return diplomats to Middle East embassies evacuated during Iran war. International Energy Association not discussing second emergency oil release, official says. Tehran hosts Pakistan Army Chief. Omani Foreign Minister visits Iran for talks on Hormuz. Iran’s central bank chief calls currency collapse “temporary” as rial hits record low. Saudi confirms Ansarallah attack on tanker. Israel continues violating ceasefire across southern Lebanon, bombing Tyre and advancing in Bint Jbeil. U.S. kills two in eastern Pacific boat strike. Senate runoff in South Carolina. U.S.-Canada trade dispute escalates. Treasury could tap $1 trillion cash account to fund bond buybacks, officials say. Trump administration prepares largest mass visa revocation in U.S. history, targeting up to 200,000 people. Trump administration proposes new $103,000 H-1B visa fee after court struck down earlier version. U.S. partners with British firm to develop nuclear-powered merchant fleet, challenge China’s shipbuilding dominance. Supreme Court opens path for Trump mail voting restrictions ahead of midterms. New poll shows Democratic voters overwhelmingly think Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. 47 killed in Haiti in gang raid near capital. U.S. removes Syria from terrorism list. Investigative journalist and Drop Site News correspondent Ali Younes faces up to a year in prison in Jordan. Greece moves Patriot battery. U.S. pushes nationwide Sudan arms embargo, criticizes unnamed “external actors.”

Palestine

• Killed and wounded in Gaza: Over the past 24 hours, nine Palestinians were killed—six in new Israeli attacks and two due to wounds sustained in earlier attacks—and 36 were injured in attacks across Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. One body was recovered from beneath the rubble.

  • The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 has risen to 73,431 killed, with 174,437 injured. Since October 11, the first full day of the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 1,296 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 4,296, while 814 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble.

• Israel continues to strike Gaza despite “ceasefire”: Israeli strikes on Gaza killed nine Palestinians, including two children, on Monday, with attacks reported on homes, tents, prayer halls, and a desalination plant.

  • Israeli forces struck a home east of Bureij refugee camp, killing a four-year-old child and trapping residents under rubble.

  • Israeli aircraft bombed the Ashkelon prayer hall and a home in Al-Shati camp, wounding residents.

  • An overnight drone strike on a tent near Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital killed two brothers.

  • Israeli forces killed two more Palestinians in strikes on Khan Younis, with one Palestinian dying on Tuesday from wounds sustained in the strikes.

• Israel shoots 10-year-old Palestinian girl in the back, killing her in Gaza tent: Israeli forces shot 10-year-old girl Amal Abu Khater in the back, killing her instantly as she sat eating lunch inside her displaced family’s tent in western Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Monday. Amal had just returned from memorizing the Quran and performing the Dhuhr prayer, her family told Drop Site’s Mohamed Ahmed.

  • “There were people who felt safe, sitting in their tents. It’s supposed to be a safe area, and it is full of displaced people,” Amal’s relative Hassan Abu Khater told Drop Site.

  • “What did she do to deserve to be killed? She was sitting and eating sweets… What sin did this little girl commit?” Amal’s grandmother, Samira Abu Khater, said.

  • Watch Ahmed’s dispatch from Khan Younis here.

• Israeli forces seize UNRWA center in East Jerusalem, expel staff: Israeli forces raided and seized the UNRWA-run Qalandiya Vocational Training Centre in Kafr Aqab, north of occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday, storming the compound with four armored vehicles and 50 Israeli security forces and raising an Israeli flag inside. Around 40 employees and others inside were detained and questioned before being expelled, with Israeli forces firing tear gas around the center. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir participated in the raid.

  • The seized UNRWA compound would be replaced with an educational and community center, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, while claiming the land has been owned by the Jewish National Fund since 1937. The facility, established in 1952 and which had hosted a diplomatic mission on Monday investigating Israeli attacks, is UNRWA’s oldest vocational training center and trains roughly 340 young Palestinian refugees annually.

  • The seizure marked a shift “from raids and restrictions to eviction and imposing control on a United Nations facility,” the Jerusalem Governorate said in a statement. It warned that the move was part of “an Israeli plan targeting the Palestinian presence and international institutions in Jerusalem.”

• Settler attacks and Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank:

  • Bethlehem: Israeli settlers attacked international solidarity activists near Harmala on Tuesday morning, choking and bruising several during the assault. The activists were attempting to open a road that had been closed by the settlers; the settlers assaulted them with sticks and pepper spray. Settlers injured three Palestinians Tuesday in the Al-Hashwa area east of Bethlehem, WAFA reported. Separately, Israeli forces detained three Palestinians in the governorate, including Palestinian journalist Thaer Al-Fakhouri.

  • Ramallah: Settlers prevented firefighting crews from reaching a fire that broke out on agricultural land in Wadi Ammar, northeast of Ramallah, delaying efforts to extinguish the blaze.

  • Nablus: Settlers have continued to besiege three Palestinian homes in Qusra, south of Nablus, for a third consecutive week. Israeli forces have also tightened restrictions and closed roads leading to the area.

  • Jenin: Israeli forces uprooted more than 100 olive trees in Wadi Al-Yahmour in Barta’a, southwest of Jenin.

  • Jordan Valley: Israeli forces arrested a 16-year-old Palestinian after he reportedly ambushed and stabbed an Israeli soldier outside a commercial complex. The soldier sustained wounds, including internal bleeding, and is hospitalized in stable condition.

• Iconic Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour passes at 79: Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour, whose work became a visual language of Palestinian identity, land, and resistance, has died at the age of 79, his family announced Monday. “The final chapter has been written,” his family said. “To the world, he leaves behind a life filled with beauty, memory, and a legacy that will continue to live through all those he touched.”

  • Born in Birzeit in 1947, a year prior to the Nakba and the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians by Israeli militias, Mansour spent more than five decades depicting a Palestine rooted in its people and landscape.

  • His work was repeatedly targeted by Israeli authorities. In 1980, the Israeli military shut down an exhibition featuring Mansour in Ramallah just three hours after it opened. Mansour later recalled that the artists were summoned and told they could not use the colors of the Palestinian flag, even in depictions of flowers or watermelons. Palestinian artists and activists drew inspiration from Mansour’s story and started using the watermelon as a symbol of their identity. During the First Intifada, he co-founded the New Visions collective, with artists boycotting Israeli art supplies and instead working with mud and henna, incorporating Palestine into their art.

Iran

• Oil tanker struck off Omani coast: An oil tanker was struck by an “unknown projectile” off northern Oman on Monday, damaging its engine room and disabling the vessel, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO).

  • The attack occurred 9 nautical miles northeast of Ash Shishah, on Oman’s Musandam Peninsula near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

  • UKMTO said the crew was safe, but the environmental impact remained unknown. No group claimed responsibility.

• U.S. unveils latest wave of Iran sanctions: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced sanctions against nearly 60 people, entities, and vessels on Monday, dubbing the campaign “Operation Economic Outcast,” aimed at disrupting Iran’s global financial and economic connections.

  • The announcement provided few details regarding secondary sanctions on countries that do business with Iran, and Bessent declined to identify the countries that would be targeted or say when penalties would take effect. China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates are Iran’s largest trade partners.

  • Bessent claimed that U.S. President Donald Trump is now personally calling world leaders and asking them to end dealings with Tehran.

  • Seyed Ali Madanizadeh, Iran’s Economy Minister, responded to Monday’s announcement by curtly noting that the U.S. would “fail this time as well” to hinder Iran, and adding that the country had “long been preparing for days like this.”

  • Iranian Parliament Speaker and lead negotiator Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf also issued a statement, writing on X that Iran’s trading partners had made clear to Tehran that they would completely disregard Washington’s threats. “They don’t take these statements into account at all,” Ghalibaf said.

  • Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari described the U.S. sanctions on Iran as unilateral, instead reaffirming Doha’s support for mediation between Washington and Tehran.

• China warns U.S. sanctions on Iran’s trade partners will “only intensify tensions”: China said it would take “necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.” Ahead of Bessent’s announcement, the Foreign Ministry warned that “sanctions and pressure do not help solve problems; they only intensify tensions.”

• NYT: U.S. prepares to return diplomats to Middle East embassies evacuated during Iran war: The U.S. is preparing to return diplomats to several Middle Eastern embassies evacuated during the war with Iran, the New York Times reported. Foreign Service officers could begin returning as early as this week to missions in Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, Iraq, and Kuwait, according to an internal State Department document obtained by the Times. The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon is expected to receive returning diplomats first but will remain below full staffing, while missions in Israel, Jordan, and Oman are eventually expected to return in full.

• IEA not discussing second emergency oil release: International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol told Reuters on Monday that the agency is not currently considering a second release from member countries’ strategic oil reserves. “Not for the time being,” he said, adding that 80% of the reserves remain after member nations announced a 400 million-barrel release in March.

  • Birol also warned that Europe could face gas shortages during the winter. European storage is around 62%, below historical averages and short of the EU’s target of 80% by December 1, as the bloc seeks to eliminate Russian imports while still hoping to receive supplies from the Middle East.

• Tehran hosts Pakistan Army Chief: Pakistani army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi arrived in Tehran on Monday.

  • Naqvi said that Munir’s meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made “significant progress” toward restoring the Islamabad memorandum between Iran and the United States.

  • The Interior Minister said Pezeshkian presented Tehran’s concerns and the meeting ended on a “highly positive note.”

  • Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaei, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reportedly told his Pakistani counterparts that Iran “distrusts the United States,” and that it must “change its behavior” before any talks, urging the U.S. to “implement the terms” of the previous memorandum of understanding.

• Omani Foreign Minister visits Iran for talks on Hormuz: Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi arrived in Tehran on Tuesday for talks about the Strait of Hormuz.

  • Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei described the conversations as strictly bilateral, having nothing to do with the U.S.

  • Shipping data showed just two tankers crossed the Strait on Monday, down from seven vessels on Sunday.

  • Trump claimed Tuesday that the U.S. Navy had removed or detonated all mines in international waters in the Strait, saying in a post on Truth Social that Iran had been warned that any vessel laying new mines would be “immediately and systematically destroyed.”

• Iran’s central bank chief calls currency collapse “temporary” as rial hits record low: Iran’s currency slid to a record low of about 2.02 million rials to the U.S. dollar on Monday. Central Bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati insisted the depreciation was “temporary, meaning they fluctuate,” in remarks aired on state TV, and reported by The New Arab.

  • The rial has lost nearly 10% in two weeks, on top of a plunge early in the war.

Yemen

• Saudi confirms Ansarallah attack on tanker: Saudi national shipping company Bahri confirmed Monday that its tanker Amzan had been attacked in the Red Sea. Ansarallah said it struck the vessel with a ballistic missile off Yanbu, causing a fire. Bahri said the crew was safe and reported no injuries. Yanbu has become Saudi Arabia’s main oil export route since Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz.

Lebanon

• Israel continues violating ceasefire across southern Lebanon, bombing Tyre and advancing in Bint Jbeil:

  • In the Tyre district, Israeli aircraft carried out two strikes on Mansouri and another on Wadi Hassan on Tuesday, alongside extensive demolition operations in Mansouri and Majdal Zoun, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

  • Israeli forces fired toward Ainata and Beit Lif in the Bint Jbeil district, while military vehicles advanced from Hadatha.

  • In Marjayoun, Israeli artillery shelling near the Hamames hill sparked a fire, while Israeli forces erected new earth barriers near Kfar Kila and Tall Al-Nahhas, including one roughly 150 meters from inhabited homes in Burj Al-Muluk.

  • On Monday evening, a major explosion was reported in Zawtar Sharqieh, in Nabatieh district, while an Israeli drone dropped a stun grenade near rescue crews in Dohat Kfar Roummane. No injuries were reported. Additional shelling hit Yater, Braasheet and Ainata, while two new airstrikes hit Mansouri. Israeli forces also carried out demolitions and detonations in Houla.

U.S. News

• U.S. kills two in eastern Pacific boat strike: The U.S. military conducted a strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific on Monday, killing two people, according to U.S. Southern Command. SOUTHCOM posted video of the strike and said it “executed a lethal kinetic strike on a low-profile vessel,” claiming without evidence it was engaged in narco-trafficking. The Trump administration’s targeting of vessels has killed at least 223 people in dozens of strikes on boats in the Pacific and Caribbean since September 2025.

• Senate runoff in South Carolina: Darline Graham, the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham faces Rep. Ralph Norman in today’s South Carolina Republican senatorial runoff. Graham received more than $827,000 worth of calls and text messages in the runup to the primary from Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, the first significant expenditure for the PAC, which has $400 million in reserve.

• U.S.-Canada trade dispute escalates: President Donald Trump warned Canada on Monday to “fall in line” or face tariffs “far WORSE” than existing ones and threatened new 50% tariffs on Canadian vehicles, auto parts, and steel starting next year.

  • Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose government is expected to announce retaliatory tariffs on Tuesday, accused Washington of trying to “destroy [its] major industries” and treat Canada as “a subsidiary of the United States.”

  • Trump also attacked Ontario Premier Doug Ford as “the less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great Rob Ford” after Ford said Canadians were prepared for “an economic war” and threatened to cut off electricity and critical minerals if the dispute worsens.

• Treasury could tap $1 trillion cash account to fund bond buybacks, officials say: The Treasury Department could use its nearly $1 trillion general account to help fund an announced increase in long-term government bond purchases, according to two senior Treasury officials cited by CNBC.

  • The move follows Secretary Scott Bessent’s surprise announcement that Treasury would double buybacks of off-the-run securities from $2 billion to at least $4 billion. The bond market, which was skeptical of Bessent’s ability to do this, saw its yields sharply rise.

  • The TGA, essentially the government’s cash reserve held at the Federal Reserve, currently has around $950 billion, well above the roughly $550-600 billion target set under the Biden administration, and officials said tapping it—rather than relying solely on short-term bill sales, as Bessent’s “Treasury Twist” comment suggested—would give the operation more firepower while avoiding any need for Federal Reserve assistance.

• Trump administration prepares largest mass visa revocation in U.S. history, targeting up to 200,000 people: The State Department is preparing to revoke B1 and B2 business and tourism visas from up to 200,000 asylum seekers between 2016 to 2026, according to State Department documents obtained by the Associated Press, in what would be the largest single mass visa revocation in U.S. history.

  • State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the department is “coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently.”

  • The revocations would not necessarily trigger immediate deportation, officials said, but would recategorize most pending asylum cases and strip holders of business or tourism status.

• Trump administration proposes new $103,000 H-1B visa fee after court struck down earlier version: The Trump administration proposed a $103,265 fee for employers seeking H-1B skilled worker visas, according to a regulation posted Monday and reported by The Washington Post, taking a new legal approach after U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin struck down a similar $100,000 fee in June.

  • Unlike the administration’s previous proposal, it would apply broadly to H-1B holders already in the U.S., not just new applicants from abroad. The regulation exempts some groups, including most U.S. colleges, universities, and nonprofit hospitals affiliated with academic institutions.

  • The estimated $8.8 billion generated by the fee annually will fund federal immigration courts, ICE, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to the regulation.

• U.S. partners with British firm to develop nuclear-powered merchant fleet, challenge China’s shipbuilding dominance: The Trump administration signed a public-private partnership agreement on Tuesday with the London-based company Core Power to accelerate development of a U.S.-flagged nuclear-powered commercial fleet, an agreement initially reported on by the Financial Times.

  • A representative from the U.S. Maritime Administration cited the U.S.’s desire to counter Chinese shipping pre-eminence when discussing the deal, saying that the deal forwards U.S. plans to “compete on technology.”

  • Core Power, which has raised about $200 million from investors including Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo, plans to begin building its first nuclear-powered vessel in 2028.

• Supreme Court opens path for Trump mail voting restrictions ahead of midterms: The Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled Monday that states suing to block President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in voting lacked legal standing to challenge it, opening a path for the order’s implementation without ruling on its legality.

  • The order, signed in March, would require states to submit voter eligibility lists before USPS delivers mail ballots.

  • Ballots are set to be mailed out as early as September 4, the date on which North Carolina will send its ballots to military and overseas voters. About 30% of 2024 ballots were cast by mail, according to federal data.

  • The three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing the ruling “lets another shoe drop in the Kafkaesque nightmare that our precedents have been steadily creating” for plaintiffs bringing election-related suits before the Court.

• IMEU poll shows Democratic voters overwhelmingly think Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: Across the first six states set to vote in the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries, the majority of likely Democratic voters say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Under 5% of Democratic voters believe Israel is not committing a genocide, according to YouGov polling reported by IMEU, though a sizeable number were unsure .

  • Even in South Carolina, which recorded the lowest “yes” response, the divide is overwhelming: 57% said Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, just 4% said it is not, and 39% were unsure.

Other International News

• 47 killed in Haiti in gang raid near capital: At least 47 people were killed and 22 wounded in a heavily armed gang raid on a neighborhood near Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, the UN reported on Monday, with homes set ablaze. The hillside farming community of Kenscoff has suffered numerous attacks by armed gangs since last year, forcing thousands to flee their homes.

• U.S. removes Syria from terrorism list: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday that after nearly 47 years, Washington has formally removed Syria from its list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism.” Rubio said the move is intended to “unlock new potential for Syria’s economic revitalization and progress,” marking another major step in the Trump administration’s normalization of relations with the Al-Sharaa government in Damascus.

  • The designation had subjected Syria to sweeping U.S. restrictions on foreign assistance, arms exports and financial transactions since December 1979, when the State Sponsors of Terrorism list was first created, and Syria was placed on it from the outset.

  • The U.S. justification centered on the Syrian government’s support and safe haven for Palestinian resistance groups and, later, Hezbollah.

• Investigative journalist and Drop Site News correspondent Ali Younes faces up to a year in prison in Jordan: On August 17, Younes, an American-Jordanian citizen, was stopped and questioned by Jordanian intelligence officers on arrival at Queen Alia Airport, taken into custody, and later released with an order to appear before prosecutors in Amman. Younes and his lawyer have been informed that he has been accused of allegedly retweeting an article from the American Conservative that included a call to cut U.S. funding to Jordan, an act authorities are treating as the crime of “undermining the national security of Jordan.” At a court hearing this week he was also informed that he had been charged with sedition and hate crimes in connection with the alleged retweet.

• Greece moves Patriot battery: Greece began transferring a Patriot air-defense battery from the eastern island of Karpathos to Crete on Sunday, following reported Iranian threats against U.S. military targets in Europe. Euronews, citing Greek media, report that the system is being moved to the Souda military facility, home to the largest U.S. and NATO base in the eastern Mediterranean.

  • Images showed the truck-mounted missile batteries at Karpathos’s port awaiting transfer by barge. Greece’s Defense Ministry had not publicly commented on the redeployment as of Monday, August 24.

• U.S. pushes nationwide Sudan arms embargo, criticizes unnamed “external actors”: At Monday’s UN Security Council briefing, Trump advisor Massad Boulos introduced a draft resolution to expand the Darfur arms embargo across Sudan, explicitly include drones and related technology, enlarge the UN monitoring panel, and strengthen investigations of sanctions violations, ahead of the sanctions regime’s September 12 renewal.

  • The expansion would newly extend the embargo into SAF-held central and eastern Sudan. Russia opposed the move, while Sudan requested only a technical renewal of the existing Darfur regime, AFP reported.

  • The briefing repeatedly placed the forces on equal footing. Boulos said the “brutality” of the SAF and RSF had discredited both, while UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo blamed external support “to both parties,” without criticizing the UAE for supporting the genocidal Raid Support Forces.

  • Denmark acknowledged that the RSF’s atrocities in El Fasher met the elements of genocide, but still backed a nationwide embargo.

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