U.S. and Iran draft deal, pending Trump approval; Netanyahu orders IDF to take 70% of Gaza; Kenya refuses to be “dumping ground” for Ebola

U.S. and Iran draft deal, pending Trump approval; Netanyahu orders IDF to take 70% of Gaza; Kenya refuses to be “dumping ground” for Ebola Drop Site Daily: May 29, 2026 U.S. and Iran near preliminary MOU to extend ceasefire 60 days and open permanent peace talks, reports say. Oman tells Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent it has “no plans” to participate in Hormuz toll plan. Trump team quietly developing indirect financing mechanisms for future payment to Iran. U.S. oil stockpiles fall for fifth straight week. Israeli officials privately urge Trump to abandon Iran talks, assassinate lead negotiator, report says. Israeli strikes kill 31 across Lebanon on Thursday. Israeli forces push north of Litani River. UNICEF: 11 children killed or injured by Israel daily in Lebanon. Lebanese and Israeli military officials to hold U.S.-brokered security talks. Israeli attacks kill at least 14 Palestinians in northern Gaza on Thursday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders IDF to expand control to 70% of Gaza. UN report documents Israeli rape, sexual abuse of Palestinians. Israel approves major settlement expansion plan in Jordan Valley. AIPAC routes millions to Michigan Senate candidate Haley Stevens through third-party processor. DOJ sues Massachusetts over refusal to issue undercover license plates to ICE. Supreme Court rules 5-4 for Black Mississippi death row inmate. Sen. Susan Collins responds to campaign rival Graham Platner after Platner says she sent him to “die in Iraq.” RSF kills at least 30 civilians in North Kordofan attack. Guatemala agrees to joint U.S. military strikes on its soil. At least 52 killed in clashes between rival FARC factions. U.S. designates Brazil's two largest criminal gangs “terrorist organizations.” Mexico’s lower house approves constitutional amendment allowing elections to be nullified over foreign interference. Kenyan court suspends U.S. Ebola quarantine facility. Russian drone crashes into Romanian apartment building. FROM DROP SITE: Drop Site is now live on WhatsApp. Get our latest reporting, podcasts, and breaking news, delivered directly. Join the channel here. This is Drop Site Daily, our free daily news recap. We send it Monday through Friday. Today’s edition is being sent to more than 750,000 subscribers. Help us grow that number by forwarding and recommending this newsletter. 🛒 Get your “Drop [Site] News/Not Bombs” Hoodie here: Iran and Ceasefire U.S. and Iran near preliminary MOU to extend ceasefire 60 days and open permanent peace talks, reports say: U.S. and Iranian negotiators have drafted a preliminary memorandum of understanding to extend their ceasefire for 60 days and begin negotiations toward permanently ending the war, U.S. officials told Al Jazeera on Thursday—though the framework still requires President Donald Trump’s final approval. The deal, also reported by Axios, entails unrestricted vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and a staged U.S. lifting of its naval blockade on Iranian ports. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency denied the deal was finalized, with a source close to the negotiations saying “any narrative from Western sources about the finalisation of the matter is not valid” until Iran formally notifies its Pakistani mediator. An Iranian official confirmed separately to Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill that Tehran had agreed to what mediators said was final draft language of a memorandum of understanding. However, a “deep distrust” of Trump is preventing any official announcement. According to the official, Iran is unable to rule out further U.S.-Israeli strikes. “Some voices on the Iranian side are concerned that President Trump may reconsider his position at the last moment,” the official said, adding that Iran would not consider Trump’s decision final until U.S. “financial markets close at the end of the week.” Iran also warned Trump would likely mischaracterize the privately agreed terms to promote his “victor” narrative. On Friday morning, Trump said he would be convening a meeting in the Situation Room, reiterating his demands in a post on Truth Social. Iran must “agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb,” he posted, while also calling for the Strait of Hormuz to be “immediately open, no tolls” to unrestricted shipping, and for any remaining naval mines to be removed or detonated. He said ships affected by what he described as a “our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade” could now “start the process of ‘heading home’.” Trump also said enriched nuclear material buried underground after earlier U.S. strikes would be “unearthed by the United States…in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and DESTROYED,” and added that “no money will be exchanged, until further notice.” Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator in indirect talks with the United States, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, issued a warning on X on Friday as negotiations continue: “We do not obtain concessions through negotiations. We obtain them with our missiles,” adding that “we have no trust in guarantees or promises, only in actions.” Ghalibaf also said, “We will not take any step before the other side acts first,” and concluded that “the winner of any agreement is the one better prepared for war the next day.” Oman tells Bessent it has “no plans” to participate in Hormuz toll plan: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that the Omani ambassador had assured him the country has “no plans” to participate in any effort to impose fees on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The exchange comes a day after Trump warned that “Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow them up.” Bessent said he warned the ambassador of possible sanctions. Iran has recently denied that it plans to charge tolls, describing its fee framework instead as pilotage and navigation service fees comparable to systems used by Turkey, Australia, and Canada, intended in part to offset war damages. Trump team quietly developing indirect financing mechanisms for future payment to Iran: With President Donald Trump unwilling to authorize any arrangement that could be framed as a direct cash payment to Iran, his team has been quietly developing alternative financing mechanisms, three anonymous U.S. officials told the New York Times. Gulf Arab states have been lobbied to underwrite Iran’s postwar reconstruction through a $300 billion investment fund, while a separate mechanism under discussion would unfreeze Iranian assets held by Qatar, which would then purchase medicines and feedstock for direct transfer to Iran—both steps requiring U.S. approval. U.S. oil stockpiles fall for fifth straight week: U.S. commercial crude inventories fell 3.3 million barrels to 441.7 million barrels—about 2% below the five-year seasonal average—for a fifth consecutive week, the Energy Information Administration reported Thursday. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve also dropped by 9.1 million barrels to a total of 365.1 million barrels. Separately on Thursday, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President Neil Chapman warned that a price spike is “two weeks or three weeks” away, saying inventories are approaching “unheard of” lows and that physical Brent crude could spike to $150–$160 per barrel; Brent futures closed under $94 Thursday as markets held out hope for a U.S.-Iran deal. Israeli officials privately urge Trump to abandon Iran talks, assassinate lead negotiator, report says: Israeli officials are privately pressing the Trump administration to scrap nuclear negotiations with Iran, assassinate parliament speaker and lead negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and launch a fresh round of strikes on Iranian oil infrastructure, according to reporting from Capital & Empire’s Aída Chávez. Israeli officials reportedly believe renewed attacks could trigger economic collapse and the regime change Israel sought at the outset of the war. Read Chávez’s full piece here. Lebanon Casualty count: At least 3,355 people have been killed, and 10,095 wounded in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Israeli strikes and forced displacement orders across southern Lebanon: Israeli strikes killed at least six people in southern Lebanon on Friday, according to the National News Agency, including four in an airstrike at the Abbasiyah junction and one in an attack on Deir Qanoun al-Nahr. A municipal police officer in the town of Aaba was killed in a drone strike on his hometown. Rescue teams recovered the bodies of two victims after searching through the rubble of a house struck by Israeli aircraft in Tyre Dibba. The Israeli military issued forced displacement orders Friday ordering residents of Ansariya, Al-Kharayeb, Shabriha, Sarafand, Adloun, and Baisariya to immediately evacuate north of the Zahrani River, claiming it was “compelled to act forcefully” against Hezbollah in the area. Israeli strikes kill 31 across Lebanon on Thursday: At least 31 people were killed and 68 wounded Thursday in Israeli attacks across Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry. Israeli forces push north of Litani River: The Israeli military crossed the Litani River from the Zawtar and Yuhmur areas on Thursday, deepening the assault on Lebanese territory, according to Press TV correspondent Hadi Hoteit, in an attempt to advance on the Arnon hill and the historic Beaufort Castle area. The move has been questioned by Israeli analysts and former generals, who say that moving into the area puts the army at risk of entering a “kill zone,” where Hezbollah has a strategic advantage—and as Hezbollah has recently achieved what Hoteit called a “micro-air superiority” with its effective use of FPV drones. UNICEF: 11 children killed or injured by Israel daily in Lebanon: 11 children have been killed or injured every 24 hours over the past week in Lebanon despite a nominal ceasefire, UNICEF said via L’Orient Today. UNICEF described the toll as “staggering,” with spokesperson Ricardo Pires stating on Friday that 15 children were killed and 62 injured in the past seven days, citing figures from the Lebanese Ministry of Health, adding that “the vast majority of these children were impacted by airstrikes in south Lebanon.” At least seven children were killed and 30 injured on Thursday, according to the Ministry. Lebanese and Israeli military officials to hold U.S.-brokered security talks: Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to hold their first security talks on Friday in Washington, D.C., amid Israel’s ongoing military assault in southern Lebanon, according to the Associated Press. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said “nothing can justify” Israel’s continued “assaults” on southern Lebanon, calling for an immediate ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal. Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc criticized the talks, saying Lebanon’s authorities were “compromising both sovereignty and rights” and “actively working to obstruct” opportunities linked to regional negotiations involving its ally Iran. Israel escalates assault on Tyre: At least 15 Israeli airstrikes hit the Lebanese city of Tyre overnight Wednesday into Thursday, killing at least three people and wounding 17 others in a direct strike on a residential block near the El-Buss Palestinian refugee camp—one of the hardest nights since the start of the war, according to local civil defense official Moussa Shaalan. The assault has triggered another wave of mass displacement from Tyre, a UNESCO World Heritage city of around 160,000, where tens of thousands had remained or returned after earlier waves of bombardment; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel would “intensify our strikes” and instructed the military to “step on the gas even more.” Read Lylla Younes’ latest for Drop Site here. Palestine Israeli attacks on Friday: Three Palestinians were killed and several injured early Friday after Israeli drones targeted a police checkpoint in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, according to WAFA. More civilians were wounded in the Al-Qarara Mawasi area after strikes led to fires igniting in tents sheltering displaced families. Five people were injured when an Israeli strike hit Al-Yarmouk Street in Gaza City, causing a fire inside a residential building. Israeli attacks kill at least 14 Palestinians in northern Gaza on Thursday: Israeli strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians on Thursday across northern Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Among the attacks, an Israeli drone strike killed at least one person and wounded several others after targeting a group of civilians in Gaza City’s Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, Shehab News reported. Civilians were forced to evacuate areas around Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah on Thursday. Israeli strikes hit the area’s recently emptied homes and burned tents sheltering displaced families,