The new situation in the Middle East and Oil Strategic Reserves

Drop Site Daily | September 9, 2026

Iran

• Iran launches massive missile barrage against U.S. targets: Iran launched what IRGC-linked outlets described as its largest missile barrage since the 40-day war, targeting U.S. military positions in Jordan on Tuesday, including Al-Azraq air base.
  • Jordan’s military claimed its air defenses intercepted 18 of 20 ballistic missiles launched from Iran on Wednesday, with the other two falling in unpopulated areas. No impacts or casualties have been independently confirmed yet.
  • Separately, Iran’s IRGC said it struck two U.S. Navy destroyers, the USS Delbert D. Black (DDG-119) and USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53), with ballistic missiles, claiming the vessels sustained “significant damage.” The IRGC said the attack was retaliation for U.S. attacks on and harassment of Iranian oil tankers. U.S. Central Command, in a social media post, denied Iran’s claims, writing: “No U.S. Navy warship has been struck; all IRGC attempted attacks failed.”
  • It also said it struck eight oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and 10 additional ships attempting to enter what Iran calls the prohibited and unsafe zone around the Strait of Hormuz.
• Iran’s IRGC sets conditions for ending U.S. war, announces new restricted maritime zone: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday that the war with the United States could end if Washington halts its threats against Iran and meets a series of conditions, including refraining from interference in the country’s nuclear and missile programs.
  • IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said the conditions also include a complete end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, an end to the blockade on Yemen and the release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
  • Separately, Mohebbi announced a new “restricted zone” extending beyond the Strait of Hormuz, covering parts of the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea, with its exact coordinates to be announced later.
  • He warned that ships entering without coordination would face “punitive measures,” including being denied navigation-related services.
• CENTCOM claims five Iranian oil tankers destroyed; Iran warns tankers in Kuwaiti and Bahraini ports: U.S. Central Command said it destroyed five Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday, claiming the IRGC had earlier twice targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles over the past two days. CENTCOM said the warship evaded the attacks and no U.S. personnel were harmed.
  • TankerTrackers identified the vessels as the Charminar, Kaviz, Horizon 1, Riesco and Derya. The Derya, a National Iranian Tanker Company supertanker, was reportedly empty. Together, the five vessels have transported 45 million barrels of Iranian crude and refined products since May 2019, according to the maritime tracker.
  • The strikes bring the number of Iranian tankers the U.S. says it has hit since Saturday to eight. “Iran continues to try to hit U.S. naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
  • In response, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned that tankers in Kuwaiti and Bahraini ports, which host U.S. forces, should immediately abandon their vessels “whether at anchorage or at dockside, as they will be targeted,” noting the two Gulf states’ complicity in the U.S. attacks on Iran.
• UKMTO: Several ships disabled in attacks across Gulf: Several merchant vessels were disabled in attacks across key Gulf shipping routes, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said on Wednesday, as it reported separate incidents off the UAE and Iraq.
  • “Reports indicate the vessels were subject to disabling fire as part of ongoing military activity” in the northern Gulf and Gulf of Oman, UKMTO said, adding that it could not confirm any casualties.
  • One cargo ship was hit by a projectile about 44 kilometers northwest of Port Rashid in the UAE and was listing at anchor after taking on water. Separately, a tanker was struck by an unknown projectile about 52 kilometers southeast of al-Faw, Iraq. Its crew was reported safe.
• U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve falls to lowest level since 1982: U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve inventories fell by another 1.2 million barrels last week to 285.4 million, their lowest level since November 1982, Energy Department data showed. The U.S. has now withdrawn 129.9 million barrels since March, reducing the emergency stockpile by roughly 31% in six months. The drawdown is part of an authorized exchange of up to 172 million barrels following disruptions caused by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
  • Only another 2.6 million barrels are currently contracted for delivery to oil companies. That leaves 42.1 million under the authorized ceiling unreleased, including approximately 39.5 million that has not been allocated and would require the Energy Department to award additional exchange contracts to refiners or other oil companies.
  • The price of Brent crude oil crossed $100 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since July. Diesel prices hit an all-time high Friday and have continued to climb, with the average price for a gallon reaching $5.94 overnight, according to AP.

• Additional 26 U.S. troops wounded: Defense Casualty Analysis System recorded 26 additional wounded U.S. troops, bringing the total number of American military casualties since the start of the war against Iran to 838—18 killed, including 7 in accidents, and 820 wounded.

Palestine

• Killed and wounded in Gaza: Over the past 24 hours, three Palestinians were killed—two in new attacks and one due to wounds sustained in earlier attacks—-and 25 were injured in attacks across Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Four bodies were recovered from beneath the rubble.
  • The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 has risen to 73,669 killed, with 174,652 injured. Since October 11, the first full day of the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 1,358 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 4,541, while 831 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble.
• Israeli attacks wound Palestinians across Gaza: A woman was wounded by Israeli fire in Halawa camp in northern Gaza, WAFA reported. Two Palestinians were critically wounded when an Israeli drone struck a motorcycle on Al-Rashid Street, south of Gaza City.
• Four Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Tuesday, including child: Israeli forces killed four Palestinians, including a child and a 69-year-old man, and wounded others across Gaza on Tuesday.
  • A 10-year-old was shot in the chest when Israeli forces opened fire toward displaced families’ tents in Al-Mawasi west of Khan Younis.
  • A 69-year-old man was killed by Israeli gunfire in Al-Maslakh, south of Khan Younis.
  • A man was killed and 12 others wounded when an Israeli drone struck a tent north of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
  • Freed Palestinian prisoner Ramzi Abu Rida died from wounds sustained in an Israeli drone strike last Friday in Al-Mawasi.
  • Israeli forces also issued at least five displacement orders across Gaza on Tuesday morning, in Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza, Shati refugee camp in western Gaza City, and near Al-Shifa Hospital.
  • Umm Ahmad Habboush, a displaced mother of eight, told Drop Site’s Abdel Qader Sabbah she was inside her tent with her children when they suddenly learned their entire block near Al-Shifa had been ordered to evacuate. “The children kept crying, ‘Mama, what about our clothes? Our things?’ I told them, ‘We don’t want them. We just need to escape with our lives.’”
  • Israeli forces subsequently struck a residential building near Al-Shifa Medical Complex with three missiles, in an area crowded with displaced families. Watch the dispatch from Sabbah here.
• Israeli forces carry out demolitions and arrests as settlers seize land across occupied West Bank:
  • Jenin: Israeli forces demolished 12 greenhouses, eight commercial storage facilities, 10 agricultural rooms and the walls of two farms near the entrance to Arraneh, northeast of Jenin, on Wednesday, WAFA reported. The head of the village council said the demolitions caused losses estimated at millions of shekels and that owners of six additional greenhouses were verbally ordered to demolish them by Thursday. Separately, Israeli forces detained seven Palestinians, including two children, during raids across the governorate.
  • Bethlehem: Israeli settlers erected a tent on Palestinian land near the western entrance to Al-Rashaydeh village, east of Bethlehem, raising concerns that a new settlement outpost could be established there. Settlers have recently intensified attacks in the nearby Kisan area, including attacks on homes and shepherds.
• Report: Israeli guards celebrated as Palestinian prisoner was tortured and killed: Israeli prison guards celebrated in real time as Palestinian prisoner Thaer Abu Asab was beaten severely and killed, according to WhatsApp messages and an indictment detailed by Haaretz.
  • “You’re going to be proud of me, of my shift. After what happened, the count took two hours and 23 minutes. Draw your own conclusions,” one female guard wrote to her partner, who was also a guard. “They’re doing CPR in the clinic right now, baby! God willing, that son of a thousand whores will die.”
  • Another guard texted a friend: “What an insane count. There’s never been anything like it. We poured cheese on them, cracked some eggs [the Hebrew word for eggs is also slang for testicles]. So much blood in the wings.”
  • Abu Asab was pronounced dead that evening. The indictment says the severe beating injured his heart and caused his death.
  • Nearly three years after Abu Asab was killed, prosecutors filed a rare indictment against 12 Israel Prison Service guards. They are accused of beating him and eight other Palestinian prisoners in Cell 6 of Wing 24 at Ketziot Prison as retaliation for reports that Druze soldiers had been killed in the war. Those reports turned out to be nothing more than a rumor, Haaretz reported.
  • Such violence was routine, known to senior commanders, and concealed through a code of silence, the report said.
• Israel continues to block Red Cross access to Palestinian prisoners: The International Committee of the Red Cross said visits to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention have not resumed and none are currently scheduled. Israel has blocked Red Cross access in violation of International law for nearly three years, despite its Supreme Court ruling the blanket ban unlawful in June.
  • The Palestinian Center for the Defense of Prisoners said any eventual resumption, which would be the first since October 7, 2023, must reach every prisoner and detention site, including military camps and undisclosed facilities. It also called for confidential interviews, documentation of torture, starvation, medical neglect and isolation, disclosure of the fate forcibly disappeared detainees, and the restoration of family visits.
• Israel to close UK consulate in Jerusalem, ban 12 British MPs and citizens over settlement sanctions: Israel announced it will close the UK consulate in Jerusalem within 30 days and ban 12 British MPs and citizens from entering the country in retaliation for Britain’s decision to impose sanctions targeting illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
  • Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused the Labour government of being “hostile” toward Israel and said 12 British lawmakers and citizens, including Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, and all five sitting Green Party MPs, would be barred over what he called “antisemitic and anti-Israel activity.”
  • UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband defended the sanctions on Wednesday, saying Britain could not remain “silent or passive” as Israeli settlements were “destroying” the prospect of a two-state solution.
• EU backs national trade restrictions on illegal Israeli settlements: The European Union reiterated on Wednesday that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law, after eight EU member states joined other countries in announcing plans to impose national restrictions on trade with settlements, Anadolu Agency reported.
  • “The EU’s longstanding position is clear: settlements are illegal under international law. They constitute an obstacle to peace and to the viability of the two-state solution,” EU Commission foreign affairs spokesman said, adding that goods originating from settlements established in territories occupied since June 1967 are not eligible for preferential tariff treatment.
  • France, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden joined the UK, Iceland, Norway, and Canada in announcing plans for national trade restrictions.

• Rubio says U.S. will “obviously not” follow UK in sanctioning illegal Israeli settlements: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that the United States will “obviously not do what the UK did” regarding the newly announced British trade sanctions and import bans on illegal Israeli settlements.
  • He said the U.S. wants to avoid any “uptick in violence, or an uptick in conflict or tensions in the West Bank at a very tenuous time for the region,” without noting Israeli settlers have been responsible for the violence.
  • The Trump administration removed all sanctions on violent settlers on the first day of the administration in January 2025.

• Israel blocks police recruits it vetted from leaving Gaza for training: Around 16,500 Palestinians who have successfully undergone Israeli security vetting to serve on a new police force in Gaza overseen by the Board of Peace are being prevented by Israel from leaving the enclave to begin training in Egypt, according to the Times of Israel citing two officials at the International Gaza Support Center, a U.S.-led base in southern Israel that monitors the “ceasefire” in Gaza (previously known as the Civil-Military Coordination Center).
  • A total of 283,000 applications have been submitted since February to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) for the new police force, according to the Times. Israel has blocked the vetted applicants, who constitute around 5% of the total, despite their applications being vetted by Israel and the NCAG.

Yemen

• Ansarallah reports 32 Saudi airstrikes across Yemen: Yemen’s Ansarallah said on Wednesday that Saudi warplanes carried out 32 airstrikes across Yemen in recent hours. Ansarallah-run Al Masirah TV said the strikes targeted areas across the Marib, Al-Jawf, Taiz, and Hodeidah governorates.
• Death toll from prison airstrike rises to 23: Four bodies were recovered on Wednesday from an Ansarallah-run prison hit by an airstrike on Monday in the city of Hazm in the northern Jawf governorate, raising the death toll from that attack to 23 people. In a statement Wednesday, Anarsallah’s military spokesman claimed that the prison strike was conducted by an F15-SA Saudi aircraft although he did not provide evidence to back up the claim.

Lebanon

• Israeli attacks continue to kill in southern Lebanon despite “ceasefire”:
  • Nabatieh: One person was killed in an Israeli drone strike on a motorcycle on the Marj Harouf-Zebdine road on Wednesday, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.
  • Tyre: Israeli warplanes struck the Zibqin Valley in the Tyre district. Separately, Lebanese Red Cross teams, assisted by the Lebanese army, recovered the remains of a person killed earlier in the area between Mansouri and Hanniyeh.
  • Bint Jbeil: Israeli warplanes struck the Salouqi Valley near the town of Shaqra in the Bint Jbeil district.

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