Sami Vanderlip.
Investigative Journalist.
Work.
An undercover investigation by Al Jazeera reveals how western donors evade charity law to provide aid to illegal Israeli settlements.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank. More than 230 of them are children. Attacks by settlers on rural Palestinian communities have increased, destroying property and capturing livestock, driving families from their homes. At the same time, the Israeli military has launched a large-scale assault on the densely populated Jenin refugee camp.
This film provides a comprehensive picture of the tactics the Israeli government uses to support the settlers and then, through infrastructure and building programmes, annex Palestinian land. Western governments claim to oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and uphold international law. However, undercover reporters from Al Jazeera expose how donors based in some Western countries fund the expansion of illegal settlements.
Al Jazeera journalists secretly film meetings with pro-settler organisations in Israel, claiming to be donors based in the UK looking to make large contributions to their projects. They’re told how funds can be paid as tax-deductible donations to charities in the UK and Canada who then pay the money on to their organisations. It is unlawful for charities in the UK and Canada to use donations to support the illegal settlement of the West Bank.
The Israeli organisations tell our undercover reporters how donations can be used to campaign for the demolition of Palestinian homes and provide military-grade security equipment such as drones and night vision cameras to settlers. We are also told that funds can be used to buy guns for settlers in occupied East Jerusalem and equipment for soldiers serving in the Israeli army.
The Israeli organisations are aware that their activities are considered unlawful in Canada and the UK and suggest ways to disguise the intended purpose of the donations, routing the funds through affiliated third parties and, in some cases, misreporting the true nature of their spending.
Charities in the UK and Canada are required to do extensive due diligence on how funds paid overseas are spent and to ensure they comply with the law. Al Jazeera’s evidence points to serious failings in this process.
American Friends of Judea and Samaria, a registered nonprofit, uses tax-deductible donations to help supply Israeli soldiers with equipment.
Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit compiles evidence of potential Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
“Look, they tortured him to make him talk," a French-Israeli soldier is heard saying of a Palestinian detainee in a video posted online in March.
“Your support allowed us to get my son and his elite sniper unit the most advanced scopes needed in order to have an advantage over Hamas when they go into Gaza.”
An investigation into 749 Combat Engineering Battalion’s mission to destroy “the symbols of Gaza’s future.”
This feature length investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit exposes Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves during the year long conflict.
The I-Unit has built up a database of thousands of videos, photos and social media posts. Where possible it has identified the posters and those who appear.
The material reveals a range of illegal activities, from wanton destruction and looting to the demolition of entire neighbourhoods and murder.
The film also tells the story of the war through the eyes of Palestinian journalists, human rights workers and ordinary residents of the Gaza Strip. And it exposes the complicity of Western governments – in particular the use of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus as a base for British surveillance flights over Gaza.
“The west cannot hide, they cannot claim ignorance. Nobody can say they didn’t know,” says Palestinian writer, Susan Abulhawa.This is “the first livestream genocide in history … If people are ignorant they are wilfully ignorant,” she says.
Video Editing.
“We can’t say genocide is a crime against humanity on the one side and then say that those who act against it are criminalized. It’s one or the other.”
Four Palestine Action activists were sentenced as terrorists in the UK on June 12 — the first time in British legal history that protesters convicted only of property damage have faced a terrorism designation at sentencing.
The four — Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Samuel Corner, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani — were convicted after a retrial of criminal damage for dismantling equipment at Elbit Systems’ Filton factory in 2024, destroying over 40 Israeli weapons including killer drones. The jury was never told they could face terrorism-level sentences, and the terrorism designation was kept secret from both the jury and the public until after the verdict. Sentences ranged from five years and eight months to eight years and eight months.
Drop Site contributor Noa Avishag Schnall was at Woolwich Crown Court on the day of the sentencing and explains the ongoing developments of the Filton 25 case, as a second trial of eight more defendants continues at the Old Bailey.
Top Iran analyst Dr. Hassan Ahmadian tells Drop Site that Donald Trump was forced to seek a deal on Iran's terms after meeting the “hard rock” of Iranian resistance. Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill spoke to Ahmadian, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at Tehran University on Friday, following President Trump’s announcement that a deal with Iran was imminent.
“The United States has hit the hard rock of a formidable force that stopped its aggression and they have to deal with it,” said Ahmadian. “President Trump realized that he cannot change the failure, the military failure of the war into a diplomatic win.”
Throughout the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, Trump has constantly flailed in his campaign to portray it as a historic success. The blunt reality is that what Trump announced as a quick and easy war of regime change rapidly transformed into a quagmire. For the past two months, Trump has struggled to find a way to declare victory, alternating between claims that Iran is begging him for a deal and threats to destroy Iranian civilization.
On Thursday morning, Trump threatened to hit Iran “very hard.” Later in the day, Trump claimed a deal was now at hand, suggesting it could be signed as early as this weekend. “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved.”
Trump has made such claims more than three dozen times since the initial two-week ceasefire was signed on April 7, and behind the scenes, Iranian officials maintain they have stood firm in protecting their own red lines in any deal framework.
This time, however, the initial response from Tehran indicates that a deal may well take shape. Scahill and Ahmadian discuss the events leading up to Trump’s announcement on Thursday, Iran’s red lines—including the unfreezing of assets and an end to the war on Lebanon—and how Israel will seek to sabotage a deal while continuing its overt and covert actions targeting Iran. They also discuss the economic impact on Iran and the domestic political situation.
Hartzell Gray is an activist and organizer from Kansas City who is now running for Congress in Missouri’s 4th District. He’s touting a platform centered on delivering for working people, advocating for Medicare for All, getting PAC money out of politics, and strengthening workers’ rights to unionize.
He spoke with Drop Site’s Julian Andreone on the House steps about his strategy moving forward in the campaign cycle and some of the obstacles he may face should he become a member come January.
You’ve seen the AI-generated LEGO clips flooding your feeds during the 40-day war — Trump in the Pentagon, Iranian soldiers holding bloodied backpacks, threading together political commentary on Vietnam, the genocide of Native Americans, and Epstein Island. Banned repeatedly on YouTube and Instagram, they’ve still built a massive American audience.
Ryan Grim and Areeba Fatima spoke with the team behind Akhbar Enfejari (Explosive Media) about who they are, their process, and how their content has resonated with the American left.
Adam Hamawy is a surgeon who worked in war zones, most notably during America’s war on Iraq and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. He is now running for Congress in New Jersey's 12th District on a platform of Medicare for All, getting corporate money out of politics and ending all wars.
Drop Site’s Julian Andreone caught up with Dr. Hamawy outside of the Rayburn House Office Building, where the candidate may be working a year from now, to discuss his life experience and how it has informed his stances on policy.
The war against Iran launched by the U.S. and Israel on February 28 has not gone according to plan. What was initially portrayed as a quick regime change action that would destroy the Islamic Republic and spark a domestic uprising soon morphed into a war of attrition in which Iran stunned the U.S., Israel, and international observers. Six weeks after the opening strikes that assassinated much of Iran’s leadership, it is President Donald Trump who appears desperate to find an exit. The Iran war is now at a definitive crossroads and the coming days will prove decisive.
In a wide-ranging interview, Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill spoke with Iranian analyst Dr. Hassan Ahmadian, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at Tehran University. Since the war began, Ahmadian has become one of the most prominent Iranian commentators in the Islamic world because of his viral appearances on Al Jazeera Arabic.
Scahill and Ahmadian talk about what Iran would be willing to accept as part of a deal with the U.S., how it could ensure that the U.S. and Israel do not renege on an agreement and restart the war, and how Iran will approach the issue of its enriched uranium stockpiles. They also discuss the internal decision-making process in Iran, debates among the political, religious and military echelons, and the role of Parliament Speaker Mohammed Baghar-Ghalibaf, Tehran’s lead negotiator in the current talks with the U.S. Ahmadian also offers a comprehensive overview of Iranian strategy and its perspective on reestablishing deterrence and regional balance in the aftermath of the U.S.-Israeli wars.
Ahead of the Wednesday vote on whether to reauthorize FISA without any reforms, Drop Site’s Julian Andreone caught up with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to address reporting that, led by Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the group sought to join the Trump administration—in particular, Stephen Miller—in pushing for a swift passage.
Progressives and House Freedom Caucus members alike are demanding that amendments be offered and debated on the bill. The current version of the bill still includes a backdoor search loophole, which allows intelligence agencies to monitor Americans’ conversations without a warrant, and a data broker loophole, which allows the government to purchase American citizens’ commercial data.
The U.S. government notably used the backdoor search loophole to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. Now, just hours before the vote, some CBC members are changing course and backing reforms.
Roughly half of Congress own individual stocks, but members tend to make disproportionately higher returns on their trades and investments than ordinary Americans on the market. Are senators and representatives insider trading?
To get to the heart of this question, Drop Site’s Julian Andreone's new series Capitol GAINS analyzes the most significant stock trades and traders in Congress, examining the committees they sit on, the returns they’ve made, and any conflicts of interest or news developments that make the trades particularly notable.
In the days following the launch of the US and Israel’s war on Iran, the circumstances of a strike that killed at least 175 civilians at a girls school in Minab have been heavily debated — specifically, the question of which country’s military was behind the strike. As of Wednesday, the preliminary findings of an ongoing military investigation confirmed the US to be at fault.
Drop Site’s Washington correspondent, Julian Andreone, asked members of Congress what they knew about the strikes and potential investigations into the subjects. Here’s what they said:
Oliver Larkin, a progressive Democrat and former staffer on Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign seeking the primary nomination for Florida’s 23rd Congressional District against incumbent Jared Moskowitz — one of the most prominent conservative, pro-Israel Democrats in Congress — spoke with Drop Site’s Julian Andreone on Friday about his campaign and the issues driving it.
The longtime progressive organizer discussed how to actually get progressive policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal passed in Congress despite entrenched institutional hurdles and the influence of special interests, as well as the reasons he believes his campaign can defeat such a high-profile incumbent in a deep-blue district.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a Bernie Sanders-endorsed doctor running for the Democratic nomination for Michigan’s next United States senator in 2026. He ran for governor of Michigan in 2018, but has his eyes on Washington as he seeks to get money out of politics, pass Medicare for All, and end forever wars.
He met up with Drop Site’s Julian Andreone on Wednesday to discuss why he is running for higher office, among other topics, including the Iran War, corruption in Congress, and Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to intelligence agencies.
Roughly half of Congress own individual stocks, but members tend to make disproportionately higher returns on their trades and investments than ordinary Americans on the market. Are senators and representatives insider trading?
To get to the heart of this question, Drop Site’s Julian Andreone's new series Capitol GAINS analyzes the most significant stock trades and traders in Congress, examining the committees they sit on, the returns they’ve made, and any conflicts of interest or news developments that make the trades particularly notable.
The House and the Senate will hold separate votes on a War Powers Resolution on Thursday, sponsored by Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie and Senators Tim Kaine and Rand Paul respectively.
The War Powers Resolution seeks to halt President Donald Trump's war of aggression on Iran through the constitutional authority vested in Congress to authorize a war. So we sent our Capitol Hill correspondent Julian Andreone to the Capitol to ask members of Congress how they plan to vote on this resolution and why.
Roughly half of Congress own individual stocks, but members tend to make disproportionately higher returns on their trades and investments than ordinary Americans on the market. Are senators and representatives insider trading?
To get to the heart of this question, Drop Site’s Julian Andreone will be embarking on a new series — Capitol GAINS. He’ll analyze the most significant stock trades and traders in Congress each week, examining the committees they sit on, the returns they’ve made, and any conflicts of interest or news developments that make the trades particularly notable.
Israel has killed more than 270 Palestinian journalists in Gaza over the last two years, and foreign reporters remain barred from entering the territory.
What does Congress actually know—and what are they doing about it? Drop Site’s Julian Andreone went to Capitol Hill and pressed members, not just on press freedom but on Israeli ceasefire violations and whether they plan to take action in response.
As the media and members of Congress were sifting through the latest Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Department of Justice, one topic continued to elude them — Epstein’s well-established ties to Israeli and U.S. intelligence.
Drop Site’s Washington correspondent, Julian Andreone, went to Capitol Hill to put that question directly to members of Congress. Here’s how they responded.