Two powerful earthquakes devastate Venezuela; Israeli killing in Lebanon continues; Iván Cepeda concedes in Colombia

U.S.-Iran technical talks set to resume next week, Pakistan says. Iran says no nuclear inspections until final deal reached. Iranian official challenges U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on path to regional peace. Rubio rejects fees in Strait of Hormuz. Gulf leaders meet to negotiate Strait of Hormuz. IRGC calls Hormuz shipping lane “unacceptable.” Oil prices fall to pre-Iran war levels as shipping rebounds. President Donald Trump says responsibility for Minab school attack may “never be determined.” Israel kills three, burns houses despite “ceasefire” in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will maintain southern Lebanon “security zone” as long as he is prime minister. Israel floods streets in Al-Maghazi camp with cement. Israeli forces kill two Palestinians during West Bank raids. Israel seizes 115 acres of Palestinian land to expand settlement bloc. Trump cancels housing bill signing, demands SAVE America Act pass first. White House requests $87.6 billion in supplemental funding. Second Iran War Powers resolution fails . Federal judge scraps most of Trump executive order on elections. Three ICC judges sue Trump administration over sanctions. At least 164 killed in pair of major earthquakes in Venezuela. Rubio says U.S. pressing for ceasefire in Sudan. Left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda concedes in Colombia. App workers in Mexico stage two-hour strike demanding fair pay and labor protections. North Korean soldier defects across heavily fortified border. Iraq threatens to leave OPEC as oil revenues collapse. Ukrainian drone strike knocks out power in Sevastopol. From Drop Site: How Jeffrey Epstein’s Israeli Network Shaped Congo’s Deadly Mineral Trade 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. Subscribe 🛒 Get your “ Drop [Site] News/Not Bombs ” Hoodie here: Get Your Hoodie A man carries a mattress past damaged residential buildings following an earthquake in Catia La Mar, Venezuela on June 25, 2026. Photo by Federico PARRA / AFP via Getty Images. Subscribe Iran and Ceasefire U.S.-Iran technical talks set to resume next week, Pakistan says: Technical talks between the United States and Iran will resume next week, most likely on Tuesday, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi reportedly said on Wednesday, according to AFP. Pakistan and Qatar are mediating the talks under the Islamabad memorandum of understanding signed June 17. The first round of negotiations was held this week in Lucerne, Switzerland. Iran says no nuclear inspections until final deal reached: Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi rejected the UN nuclear watchdog’s claim that inspections of Iranian sites are imminent on Wednesday, saying on X that no meeting took place with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi during last week’s talks in Switzerland, and that there is no plan to grant access to facilities struck during the war or to Iran’s nuclear material until a final agreement and full sanctions relief. Grossi had said hours earlier that inspections were “going to happen” within days, citing the deal’s text placing Iran’s nuclear material under IAEA supervision. Iranian official challenges Rubio on path to regional peace: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei hit back at U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who claimed there could be no end to regional hostilities “as long as Iranian proxies are launching missiles and drones from Iraq.” “No one will be fooled,” Baghaei wrote. “We can’t have a peaceful region so long as American militarism and interventionism persist, and their occupying proxy [Israel] continues, with absolute impunity, to inflict endless wars across the region and perpetrate genocide, terror, violence, and every [type of] atrocity.” Baghaei added that Washington’s “contradictory statements” would only deepen Iranian distrust. Rubio rejects fees in Strait of Hormuz: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday said that Iran would not be permitted to impose tolls or transit fees on vessels using the Strait of Hormuz under any final agreement with Washington. Speaking during a regional tour in the United Arab Emirates and later at a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Bahrain, Rubio said, “There is zero support from Gulf countries for tolls or fees on the Strait of Hormuz,” adding, “It’s an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway.” He warned that allowing countries to charge for passage because a waterway borders their territory would create “total chaos,” adding that such a precedent would spread “throughout the world like a contagion.” Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Monday that “Hormuz will never return” to its pre-war state, with Oman and Iran releasing a statement on Wednesday saying they will negotiate the future arrangements and costs of services associated with the strategic waterway. Gulf leaders meet to negotiate Hormuz: Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, met Oman’s ruler in Muscat on Wednesday to launch a new negotiating track between Iran, Iraq, and Gulf Arab states over the Strait of Hormuz’s future management, a diplomat briefed on the talks told Reuters. The discussions, separate from the U.S.-Iran negotiations, carry out a provision of the memorandum of understanding calling for Iran to coordinate with Oman, Iraq, and other Gulf states on navigation and maritime services, with Pakistan as proposed mediator. Gulf states are expected to push for no transit fees, while Iran is likely to propose environmental, navigation, and security charges, with toll-free passage under the U.S. deal set to last only 60 days. Separate reconciliation talks are reportedly planned to take place in Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported, aimed at mending ties between Iran and the Gulf States. IRGC calls Hormuz shipping lane “unacceptable”: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned in a statement on Wednesday that a newly announced shipping lane is “unacceptable” and “completely dangerous.” Oman and the UN-affiliated International Maritime Organization had announced a southern temporary shipping corridor to allow hundreds of ships and roughly 11,000 stranded seafarers to transit the Strait of Hormuz the previous day. In its statement, the IRGC argued that safe passage is only possible via routes approved by Iran, and insisted that all vessels must coordinate with its navy via international maritime Channel 16 when transiting the strait. “Navigation outside these routes is extremely dangerous and prohibited, and we warn all vessels to strictly refrain from any transit outside the designated routes,” it said. Oil prices fall to pre-Iran war levels as shipping rebounds: Brent crude fell to $72.24 a barrel on Thursday, returning to pre-Iran war levels and marking a decline of more than 20% this month, The Guardian reported, as vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz doubled over the previous 24 hours to its highest level since late February, according to CNN and MarineTraffic data. Trump says responsibility for Minab school attack may “never be determined”: Trump said he had not seen the report into the Minab school attack—which killed at least 165, mostly children—when asked about the matter in the Oval Office on Wednesday, telling a reporter he had to “wait for it to be complete,” and casting doubt on the possibility of determining the responsibility of any party. “I don’t know that they’re ever going to solve that problem. I don’t know that they’re ever going to say it was one of our missiles.” He called the attack “horrible,” though he indicated it was unlikely the U.S. was at fault because “missiles were flying all over the place.” Nearly every investigation of the attack has found the United States culpable , including preliminary investigations from the U.S. military itself. Iran’s lead negotiator calls MOU “America’s declaration of defeat”: Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s lead negotiator and Speaker of Parliament, said at a conference in Baku, Azerbaijan on Wednesday that the memorandum of understanding to end the war represents “America’s declaration of defeat.” “The Islamabad understanding was not the result of pressure and coercion, but rather the result of the resistance and authority of the brave Iranian nation,” Ghalibaf said. In the same speech, Ghalibaf also noted that the eventual withdrawal of foreign military forces from the region—where the U.S. maintains multiple bases—was a “strategic goal” for Iran. Lebanon Killed and wounded: Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 19 more people died over the past 24 hours from wounds sustained in previous Israeli attacks, bringing the death toll since hostilities resumed on March 2 to 4,211 killed and 12,173 wounded. Israel kills three, burns houses despite “ceasefire”: Three people were killed and one injured after an Israeli drone struck a vehicle traveling on the road between Zawtar and Mefdoun in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. Israeli forces also burned several homes in the southern Lebanese town of Ain Arab on Thursday after forcibly displacing the residents the previous day, despite residents having only returned after roads to the village were reopened. Separately, Israeli soldiers released a Syrian shepherd who had been abducted during an Israeli ground incursion near Al-Mari two days earlier. Netanyahu says Israel will maintain southern Lebanon “security zone” as long as he is prime minister: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday Israel will not withdraw from the “security zone” it occupies in southern Lebanon as long as he remains in office, according to Haaretz, and described overcoming fear as Israel’s “greatest achievement” of the war while pledging to address Hezbollah’s explosive drones. He also said Israel now controls nearly 70 percent of the Gaza Strip and is “suffocating Hamas,” recalling earlier pressure he faced not to advance into Rafah in the south of Gaza after the October 7 attacks. Israeli military sources on Thursday denied reports that Israeli forces had withdrawn from part of the self-declared “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon, contradicting comments by a U.S. State Department official who told Reuters that Israel had pulled back from part of the area as a “significant demonstration of good faith” toward the Lebanese government. A senior Lebanese security official also said authorities were unaware of any Israeli pullback. This comes amid the fifth round of U.S.-mediated Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington, with a senior Lebanese security official telling Reuters that military officials will discuss withdrawal and that any concrete plan would emerge only after the talks conclude on Thursday. Palestine Killed and wounded: Over the last 24 hours, two Palestinians were killed and 15 were injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza. The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 has risen to 73,043 killed, with 173,417 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Since October 11, the first full day of the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 1,031 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 3,309, while 785 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble. Israel floods streets in Al-Maghazi camp with cement: Residents of eastern Al-Maghazi camp in central Gaza told Drop Site’s Mohamed Ahmed that Israeli forces pumped a thick cement-like substance into their neighborhood after tanks advanced near Hosni Al-Masadar Mosque on Sunday, leaving streets buried under hardened concrete and trapping families inside their homes. Speaking to journalist Mohamed Ahmed, a resident told Mohamed that people in the area could no longer reach work, evacuate, or transport wheelchair users to medical appointments. “We escaped the siege of gunfire, only to be under the siege of cement,” he said. Another resident said children and elderly residents had fallen trying to cross the cement-covered roads. He warned the material had seeped into homes and could clog drainage systems. “This is the first time in the history of the Gaza Strip that we are drowning in cement,” he said. Israeli forces kill two Palestinians during West Bank raids: Israeli forces killed two Palestinian men during raids in the occupied West Bank between Wednesday and Thursday morning, Mohammad Zayed from Jenin and Mustafa Al-Khatib from Salfit, according to WAFA. Israeli forces surrounded a house in the town of Al-Yamun, west of Jenin, before fatally shooting Zayed and withholding