UN Security Council approves Trump's Gaza plan; Israel vows to block any path to a Palestinian state
Drop Site Daily: November 18, 2025
The UN Security Council approves the Trump administration’s plan for Gaza by a vote of 13-0. Almost 300,000 displaced families in Gaza lack the minimal requirements for survival as Israel continues to withhold tents, flooring, and heaters amid mud and freezing conditions. Israeli soldiers shoot and wound both an Al Jazeera cameraman and a child in the West Bank. One Israeli is killed and three are wounded by an attack in Hebron. An autistic Palestinian teenager who credibly accused guards and inmates of sexually assaulting him is sent back to the same Israeli prison where he claims it happened for pre-trial detention. Chi Ossé files paperwork to run against Hakeem Jeffries. Trump announces the U.S. will sell Saudi Arabia F-35s in anticipation of a visit from Saudi monarch-in-waiting Mohammed Bin Salman. Former Harvard President Larry Summers says he will “step back” after Epstein revelations. Trump says strikes inside Mexico would be “fine” with him. Experts warn about the effects of the rollback of wetland protections. Israel bombs a car in Nabatieh. Russian drone strikes in Dnipro hit a broadcasting station. France agrees to sell jets to Ukraine. Sudan says it repelled a major RSF thrust in Kordofan. Polish Prime Minister accuses Ukrainian citizens of sabotaging the Warsaw-Deblin railway line. ISWAP claims it killed a Nigerian Brigadier General. U.S. airstrikes killed 12 Somali civilians, local sources claim.
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The Genocide in Gaza
The Israeli military said it killed at least two Palestinians in southern Gaza on Tuesday after they crossed the so-called “yellow line” demarcating territory under Israeli military control. Israel also conducted air strikes east of Khan Younis while carrying out raids and demolition operations east of Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera.
An Israeli quadcopter drone dropped two bombs on and around Al-Daraj School in Gaza City on Monday, according to reports from Wafa, injuring more than 13 people, including a child who is now in critical condition. One device detonated at the school’s main gate and another struck a tent inside a shelter area behind the building, officials reported, emphasizing that the school sits in an area west of the “yellow line” and therefore outside of Israeli military control.
Gaza’s Government Media Office warned of a full shelter collapse as Israel continues its blockade on tents, tarps, plastic sheeting, heaters, flooring, and mobile sanitation, leaving tens of thousands of people in winter-flooded encampments without protection from the elements. Officials say more than 288,000 families now lack the minimum requirements for survival and that Gaza needs roughly 300,000 tents and mobile homes to meet their needs. Without them, entire camps are submerged in mud, and children and the elderly are exposed to freezing conditions.
A Sky News report on Israeli authorities blocking aid features a walk through a warehouse in Jordan stocked with shelter materials—including tents, tarps, blankets, and insulation—which Israel has systematically denied to Gaza’s Palestinians, whose encampments have now flooded after this weekend’s winter storms. The investigation also found that Israel is obstructing vital medical equipment such as prosthetics, wheelchairs, and other mobility devices for children who lost limbs in Israeli attacks.
Over 80 Palestinians from Gaza who went to East Jersualem for medical treatment before Israel began its genocide were returned to the enclave today after being stranded for over two years while Israel blocked all returns and new medical entries. Some had completed their treatment and expressed their desire to return to Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, however some were forced to return, according to Middle East Eye.
Trump’s Plan for Gaza
The UN Security Council approved the Trump administration’s plan for Gaza on Tuesday by a vote of 13-0, with Russia and China abstaining. The resolution authorizes an international stabilization force in Gaza to work to demilitarize the Palestinian resistance by ensuring “the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups” and authorizes it “to use all necessary measures to carry out its mandate.” The resolution also approves the creation of a “board of peace” with sweeping authority over Gaza, including overseeing reconstruction, security, economic recovery, and coordinating the distribution of humanitarian aid. Authorization for the board and the international stabilization force expires at the end of 2027. The resolution gives no timeline or guarantee for an independent state but says that, after reconstruction moves forward and reforms are made in the Palestinian Authority, “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
President Donald Trump celebrated the Security Council’s endorsement of his proposed “Board of Peace,” saying he will chair it alongside “the most powerful and respected leaders” (Jared Kushner and Tony Blair) and calling the approval “one of the biggest” in UN history. He claimed the measure will bring “further peace all over the world” and highlighted backing from Qatar, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Jordan.
Before the vote, U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz warned that “a vote against this resolution is a vote to return to war,” as Washington pressed members to back the plan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu applauded the vote on Tuesday with his office saying in a social media post: “We believe that President Trump‘s plan will lead to peace and prosperity because it insists upon full demilitarization, disarmament and the deradicalization of Gaza.”
Hamas blasted the resolution, saying in a statement that it “does not meet the level of our Palestinian people’s political and humanitarian demands and rights,” calling it a plan that “imposes a mechanism to achieve the occupation’s objectives, which it failed to accomplish through its brutal genocide.”
Hours before the UN Security Council vote on the U.S.-backed Gaza plan, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir escalated threats against the Palestinian Authority, saying Mahmoud Abbas should be placed “in solitary confinement” and that senior PA officials should face “targeted killings” if the UN advances recognition of a Palestinian state, which he dismissed as a project of an “invented people.” Times of Israel reports that he told his faction that Israel must prepare orders for assassinations and arrest warrants, adding that “a solitary confinement cell is ready for him in Ketziot Prison.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, at his own faction meeting, vowed to block “any path” to Palestinian statehood, calling it his “life’s mission” and insisting that any such state should be established in “Arab countries” or Europe but “not here,” where he said Israel will retain “full sovereignty.” The Palestinian Authority welcomed the resolution and said it was ready to immediately implement it on the ground.
West Bank and Israel
Israeli forces shot and wounded an Al Jazeera cameraman in Tulkarem and a child in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. The journalist, Fadi Yassin, was covering a protest near the Nour Shams refugee camp by Palestinians demanding to be allowed to return to their homes following a raid by Israeli forces. Four Palestinians were also arrested.
One Israeli was killed and three were wounded in a reported car ramming and stabbing attack at an intersection near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. The two suspected attackers were killed by Israeli forces at the scene, according to Israeli Army Radio.
Seven Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces in raids on Bethlehem and the Jalazone refugee camp on Tuesday, according to the Wafa news agency. Israeli forces also conducted raids in Nablus and the surrounding villages.
Imprisoned Palestinian journalist Farah Abu Ayyash described a sustained pattern of torture by Israelis, beginning with her arrest in the middle of the night in August. She was bound to a chair under filthy, dripping water in a Karmeh Tzur prison, she said, subjected to tightened plastic restraints that cut into an artery, attacked by dogs, and held in solitary confinement before being forced to unlock her phone for her Israeli captors. Ayyash expressed disappointment in the fact that her colleagues in the West have failed to advocate for her freedom. “I’m hurt by my fellow journalists. They didn’t create pressure or raise their voices for my release. I was arrested because of my work. I hope every free journalist hears me.”
A Tel Aviv court ruled that a 14-year-old Palestinian autistic boy from Jaffa who reported being sexually assaulted by both prison guards and other inmates must be returned to the same prison for temporary detention, Haaretz reports. The boy, who was charged with “security offenses,” repeatedly tried to involve Israeli authorities, including the Prison Service, but his requests for help were ignored, according to his public defender and his mother. He will return to court next week.
U.S. News
Chi Ossé, a 27-year-old city councilman from Brooklyn, has filed paperwork to challenge U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in the 2026 Democratic primary for New York’s 8th District. Ossé has unequivocally voiced his support for Gaza—writing that “Israel is a terror state”—and pushed for New York City’s ceasefire resolution. Jeffries, meanwhile, has positioned himself as one of Congress’s strongest defenders of Israel throughout the genocide.
“We will be selling F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia,” President Trump said on Monday. The announcement came just ahead of the expected visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Israel had urged Washington to condition the jet sale on Saudi normalization with Israel, according to Axios.
Harvard economist and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said he would step back from public commitments, including his role at the Center for American Progress, while continuing to teach. His decision comes after his yearslong correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein was released by the House Oversight Committee last week. Summers sought Epstein’s advice as he pursued a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a “mentee,” even after the 2018 Miami Herald investigation detailing accusations from 80 girls and women; Summers forwarded her emails, discussed her “outfits,” and asked Epstein to estimate “the probability of my getting horizontal w peril.” Their private messages ended on July 5, 2019—the day before Epstein was arrested.
President Donald Trump said Monday that launching U.S. strikes in Mexico would be “OK with me,” declining to say whether he would seek Mexico’s permission and adding that he would be “proud” to hit drug cartel targets because “they’re killing our people.” He also said he would be “proud” to destroy cocaine production sites in Colombia, pivoting mid-answer to boast that U.S. intelligence knows “every route” and “the address of every drug lord,” even though Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has repeatedly said U.S. military action in Mexico will not happen without her consent.
The U.S. military has restarted jungle warfare training in Panama for the first time in more than two decades, according to a report from The Hill, sending conventional ground forces this fall to take part in a three-week “Combined Jungle Operations Training Course” alongside Panamanian security forces at Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, the former Fort Sherman. Troops have been conducting weapons drills and survival exercises in dense, hazardous terrain under a new bilateral agreement that expanded U.S. access to Panamanian facilities—an agreement reached as Trump claimed the Panama Canal is under Chinese control and called for the U.S. to “take back” the route. Panama insists the training is unrelated to Washington’s massive regional military buildup against Venezuela.
Environmental justice groups warned Monday that the Trump administration’s rollback of federal wetland protections—a new EPA proposal from Administrator Lee Zeldin redefining “Waters of the United States”—would strip safeguards from most wetlands without visible surface water and codify a far narrower standard than even the 2023 Sackett v. EPA ruling. As discussed in a report from Common Dreams, prominent critics, including a former EPA water-science director, have said the rule hands a major victory to developers and polluters by weakening the Clean Water Act, threatening drinking water, worsening flooding, and allowing small streams and sensitive wetlands to be filled, drained, or contaminated.
International News
The Israeli military bombed a car in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killing at least one person, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.
Russian drone strikes on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro overnight damaged the Suspilne public broadcaster’s newsroom, caused multiple fires across the city, and disrupted railway operations. Over 30 drones were shot down over Dnipro in an attack that left two people injured. Russian forces also launched missiles at the city of Berestyn in the Kharkiv region, killing a 17-year-old girl and injuring nine others, according to regional authorities.
Syria has opened the first trial over a series of massacres that killed hundreds of people this March, including at least 1,426 people verified by the National Commission of Inquiry, most of them civilians. Fourteen suspects, including seven loyalists to the former Assad regime and seven members of the new government’s security forces, appeared in an Aleppo court on charges of sedition, inciting civil war, murder, and looting. The clashes began after attacks on security forces loyal to the new government, and spiraled into violence targeting Alawite communities. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa presented the trial as a step toward judicial reform, though the hearing was adjourned to December.
France has agreed to supply Ukraine with up to 100 Rafale F4 fighter jets, eight advanced air-defence systems, long-range radar units, and jointly produced interceptor drones as part of a 10-year strategic defence agreement beginning next year. . French President Emmanuel Macron and Zelensky signed the deal near Paris, with jet deliveries planned through 2035. Financing remains unresolved, with France seeking EU funds to finance the deal while considering the use of frozen Russian assets.
Sudan’s army says it repelled a major Rapid Support Forces (RSF) assault on its headquarters in Babnusa, its last stronghold in West Kordofan, as the RSF continues its eastward push after consolidating control in Darfur. Satellite imagery reviewed by Al Jazeera shows extensive drone strikes, shelling, and heavy damage to army facilities in Babnusa, while verified footage also shows Sudanese soldiers celebrating captured armored vehicles that RSF fighters abandoned during a retreat. The Kordofan front is expected to see heavy fighting in the coming weeks.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated earlier this week that two individuals suspected of sabotaging the Warsaw–Dęblin railway line are Ukrainian citizens who he claimed were acting in cooperation with Russian intelligence services. After carrying out the railway incidents, which caused disruptions on the line, both men reportedly escaped back to Belarus, which Polish authorities view as part of a broader pattern of hostile activity conducted from Belarusian territory. Tusk called the attack “an unprecedented act of sabotage”.
Turkish ultranationalist leader Devlet Bahçeli stated that he was prepared to visit imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in an attempt to push forward peace talks between the Turkish government and the group. Bahçeli has been pressuring the newly formed parliamentary commission responsible for the peace process to take more decisive action, accusing it of moving too slowly. The public declaration drew applause from members of the ultranationalist MHP party who have framed recent peace talks with Kurdish separatist groups as part of an effort to solidify internal security in the country.
Islamic State West Africa Province is claiming that it killed a Nigerian Brigadier General during an ambush on Friday in the Lake Chad Region, according to an AFP report. If true, it would mark the highest-ranking casualty in the conflict between the Nigerian state and Nigerian jihadists since 2021. Nigerian authorities insist the officer is alive, however, and claim earlier reports of his death are attributable to a period in which he was “missing.”
Local sources say at least 12 civilians—eight children, three women, and an elderly man—were killed and nine more wounded in bombings near Jamame in Somalia’s Lower Juba region, which the Somali Guardian described as the latest in nearly 100 U.S. airstrikes this year. AFRICOM acknowledged conducting weekend strikes “targeting al-Shabaab” in the area but withheld all operational details, even as reporting indicated that Danab—the U.S.-trained Somali special forces unit that frequently receives U.S. air suppor —was carrying out raids in nearby villages. The civilian deaths follow a Danab operation in Balcad district last week in which young children were reportedly killed, and come amid President Donald Trump’s record pace of airstrikes in Somalia, which analysts say has shattered previous annual totals with almost no coverage in U.S. media.
South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said the recent arrival of Palestinians airlifted from Gaza appears to be “a clearly orchestrated operation,” warning that it reflects “a broader agenda to remove Palestinians from Palestine into many different parts of the world.” He cautioned that Pretoria “does not want any further flights to come our way,” describing the transfers as an attempt to ethnically cleanse “the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank.” At least two planes have landed carrying hundreds of Palestinians on flights run by a little-known organization alleged to be coordinating closely with Israeli authorities.
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The UN resolution may speak of “peace,” but the reality on the ground is mass displacement, blocked aid, and escalating violence against civilians and journalists. Any plan that ignores Palestinian self‑determination while families freeze in flooded camps risks entrenching injustice rather than ending it. Genuine peace requires accountability, humanitarian access, and recognition of basic rights — not just new boards and forces imposed from above.
I like what Hamas said and I quote “imposes a mechanism to achieve the occupation’s objectives, which it failed to accomplish through its brutal genocide.” Netanyahu just loves this deal.
Looks like there isn't much light at the end of the Palestinian freedom tunnel.