Lula beats Bolsonaro; Israel expels 3,100+ Palestinians in Hebron; Student-led movement defeats Vučić in Serbia

Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva waves a Brazil flag during a rally on October 24, 2026 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Photo by Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images. Monday, October 26, 2026 – Palestine : Seven Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Monday. 800 Palestinians forced to flee from Shujaiya after Israel set fire to camp. Israeli operation in Hebron forcibly displaces over 3,100 Palestinians as attacks continue across the occupied West Bank. Israel kills at least 14 Palestinians in Gaza over the weekend. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in tight race against Eisenkot in Israeli elections tomorrow. Iran : In unexpected diplomatic move, Saudi, Pakistani, and Turkish officials travel to Iran for talks. Iraq keeps borders closed to pressure Iran, orders arrest of Iraqi official opposing the closure. Oil spill off UAE coast widens, satellite images show. Yemen : Saudi-led coalition carries out strikes in Yemen as Ansarallah claims attacks on airport, military bases, and oil infrastructure. Egyptian parliament authorizes Sisi to send military reinforcements to Saudi Arabia if requested. Over half of Taiz’s hospitals and medical centers shut down amid Ansarallah siege. Saudi-coalition strikes kill 21, wound 30 in Yemen. U.S. : Former President Barack Obama, President Donald Trump attend dueling rallies in Michigan; Trump spouts Islamophobia to stir his base. U.S. military gives SpaceX access to precise space-tracking data, raising conflict-of-interest questions. NYC set to sign no-bid deal with Israeli tracking company. Trump says U.S. will “take care of Cuba”; Rubio urges Cubans to partner with CIA. White House considers mass pardons for junior staff, sources say. Attorney General Todd Blanche defends DOJ suit to block automatic certification of Alaska’s Senate result if Republican candidate loses. SNAP enrollment has fallen 13% since the One Big Beautiful Act, straining food banks and school meal programs. U.S. presses Mexico for deeper cooperation against cartels. International: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva re-elected president of Brazil, defeating far-right Flávio Bolsonaro. Serbian student-led movement ousts right-wing leader Vučić, wins big in parliament. The Guardian: U.S. military “weaponizing” El Niño in Somalia. Remains located in Haiti during search for missing Salvadoran soldiers. North Korea accuses South Korea of fabricating demilitarized zone blast, places howitzers on border. Jordan arrests three suspected of deadly church attack. Opposition figure María Corina Machado returns to Venezuela after more than 10 months in exile. Rapid Support Forces attacks power stations, causes outages across southeastern Sudan. Amnesty: Gunmen kill at least 40 in Nigerian village. Algeria authorizes army deployment to Niger, first foreign troop mission since 1973. This is Drop Site Daily, our free news recap We send it Monday – Friday Subscribe Palestine Seven Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Monday: Israeli attacks on Khan Younis in southern Gaza killed at least four Palestinians, including a seven-year-old girl, and wounded more than ten, while one Palestinian was killed and several others wounded Monday in a drone strike in the Rimal neighborhood of western Gaza City, according to WAFA. A separate Israeli drone strike in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, killed two Palestinians and wounded two. Over the past 24 hours, eight Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks and 35 injured across Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Three bodies were recovered from beneath the rubble. The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023, is now 74,555 killed, with 175,727 injured. Since October 11, 2025, the first full day of the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 1,559 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 5,608, while 845 bodies have been recovered. 800 Palestinians forced to flee from Shujaiya after Israel set fire to camp: Over 800 Palestinians have been forced to displace yet again from Shujaiya, an eastern neighborhood in Gaza City, after Israeli forces set fire to a displacement camp, according to Al Jazeera. Israeli quadcopter drones set the camp ablaze at around 8 p.m. local time on Sunday destroying tents housing men, women, children, and the elderly. Israeli operation in Hebron forcibly displaces over 3,100 Palestinians as attacks continue across the occupied West Bank: Hebron: Israeli forces continued their military operation in Hebron for a fourth consecutive day Monday, conducting raids, demolitions, and mass displacement in the city, WAFA reported. Israeli forces have forced 3,171 Palestinians—488 families—to displace, local officials said. More than 70 Palestinians were detained and over 500 homes searched, while Israeli forces have closed 128 gates and established 120 military checkpoints across the governorate. In Al-Samu, settlers beat a 58-year-old Palestinian woman outside her home, leaving her hospitalized with chest injuries. In Al-Dhahiriya, Israeli forces detained two brothers after settlers attacked them while they were grazing sheep. Jenin: Israeli forces began bulldozing Palestinian land for an approximately 11.5-kilometer settlement road linking settlements near Arraba to others south of Jenin. Israeli forces also began demolishing agricultural and commercial structures near Haddad Tourist Village, including greenhouses, agricultural rooms, a car showroom, and a recreational park. Palestinian “doctor of the poor,” released after four months in Israeli detention: Israeli authorities released Dr. Mazen Al-Rantisi, 71, from Ganot prison after more than four months in detention, with visible signs of physical assault, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society. Al-Rantisi, widely known in the occupied West Bank as the “doctor of the poor,” was arrested during a predawn raid on his Ramallah home on June 21, without his family being informed of the reason. Israeli media reports suggested his detention was linked to his role as chair of the Union of Health Work Committees, a Palestinian healthcare organization Israel designated an “unlawful association” in 2020. Israel kills at least 14 Palestinians in Gaza over the weekend: Six Palestinians, including two women and a girl, were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza on Saturday, according to Shehab News, while eight Palestinians were killed on Sunday. Israel carried out two airstrikes on the the Islamic University in Gaza City, killing three security guards. Several students were also wounded, some seriously. “Today, we were studying in class, minding our business, while the professor was explaining. Suddenly, an airstrike hit directly beneath us, a massive explosion,” Mohammed Qandil, an engineering student, told Drop Site’s Abdel Qader Sabbah. “We came here to learn and get an education. We came to rebuild our country, the country they destroyed and devastated. Why are they attacking us here too?” Qandil asked. “It’s a deceptive ceasefire. The war has not stopped. Israeli brutality has not stopped,” Umm Rami Deeb said. Watch the dispatch from Sabbah here and here . In central Gaza, Israeli gunfire killed an eight-year-old girl, the sole survivor of her family following their killing in an Israeli strike in December 2023. Netanyahu in tight race against Eisenkot in Israeli elections tomorrow: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of the Likud party, faces a tight race as Israelis head to the polls on Tuesday for legislative elections. Netanyahu’s chief rival in the campaign is former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, who heads a new party called Yashar. Eisenkot served in Netanyahu’s war cabinet in the opening months of the genocide in Gaza. While serving as chief of the Israeli military’s northern command, Eisenkot devised the so-called Dahiya doctrine, a military strategy of intentionally causing massive destruction to civilian life and infrastructure. It is named for the Dahiya neighborhood of southern Beirut, which the Israeli military routinely bombarded during its 2006 war in Lebanon. “What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on,” he said in 2008. “We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.” Israeli army chief challenges Netanyahu order over Iran confrontation: Israel’s top general balked at an order from Prime Minister Netanyahu that he feared could set off a sudden confrontation with Iran two days before Tuesday’s election, Israel’s Channel 12 reported. The directive is unspecified. According to sources who spoke to the channel, military officials fear Netanyahu is trying to exploit the Iran issue to generate political momentum. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz dismissed the report as “completely baseless.” Iran In unexpected diplomatic move, Saudi, Pakistani, and Turkish officials travel to Iran for talks: Senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey arrived in Tehran on Monday for meetings with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei to discuss regional security, including Israeli actions in Palestine and Lebanon and the consequences of U.S. military attacks on Iran. It marks the first talks between Iran and the three countries since they signed the Mecca defense pact in August. Saudi diplomat Rayed Krimly said the visit is in support of mediation efforts by Qatar and Pakistan and underscores the alliance’s role in “reinforcing regional security and stability.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said the meeting could pave the way for a regional security framework independent of outside powers, adding that “regional security can only be ensured by relying on the will and security considerations of the countries in the region themselves.” Separately, Baghaei dismissed the significance of upcoming Israeli elections, calling them “a competition among different factions” to commit more crimes, aggression and killings. “It makes no difference to us who ultimately takes the helm of the Israeli regime,” he said, adding that Israel brought “nothing to the region but violence and killings.” Iraq keeps borders closed to pressure Iran, orders arrest of Iraqi official opposing the closure: An Iraqi court issued an arrest warrant Monday for Mustafa Al-Mohammadawi, head of the Maysan Provincial Council, over his threats to launch civil disobedience and block roads unless the government reopened the Al-Sheeb border crossing with Iran. Iraq indefinitely closed the Al-Sheeb crossing last Wednesday, citing security concerns and the need to install equipment to prevent smuggling. Pakistan also suspended trade through its Gabd-Rimdan and Taftan border crossings with Iran last week. The closures appear to signal growing U.S. pressure on Iran’s overland trade routes, following Washington’s naval blockade of the country, though neither government has publicly linked its decision to U.S. demands. Oil spill off UAE coast widens, satellite images show: An oil spill from a ‌damaged tanker off the coast of the United Arab Emirates is growing, according to Reuters citing satellite imagery, with dark layers of oil spreading at sea and along the coastline of the northern Umm Al Quwain emirate. The UAE’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environment has announced that all beaches and coastal areas around the city of Umm Al Quwain have been temporarily ⁠closed, while access to Al Hamriyah Beach in neighboring Sharjah has also been shut down as a precaution. Authorities have not named the tanker involved in the incident or said what caused the spill. But experts told Reuters that the spill was coming from a tanker called the Gem No.2, which was reportedly hit by an unidentified projectile last month, causing a fire that was later extinguished. Yemen Saudi-led coalition carries out strikes in Yemen as Ansarallah claims attacks on airport, military bases, and oil infrastructure: The Saudi-led coalition has carried out a series of attacks targeting Ansarallah-controlled areas of Yemen, the coalition spokesperson said on Monday. The coalition claimed to have destroyed five tunnels used to store ballistic missiles, four missile launchers, and a missile storage facility. It also claimed its strikes destroyed two missile launchers in Sana’a, including one allegedly used in the attack on the Saudi capital. Sana’a-based media outlets said airstrikes hit a solar power system and a water well in the capital on Monday. Ansarallah targeted Riyadh’s airport Monday with a ballistic missile, the group’s spokesperson said —which Saudi forces said they intercepted. Ansarallah also claimed drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s East-West crude oil pumping stations. On Sunday, Ansarallah said it launched dozens of ballistic missiles in three operations on Sunday targeting King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait, and a Saudi border guard naval base in Jizan. The group also targeted Saudi-backed military positions and weapons depots in Aden and