A pickup truck exploded on a busy shopping street in the port city of Guayaquil in Ecuador on Tuesday evening killing one person and injuring two others in what the governor called an intentional attack.

Maj. Jorge Montanero of the Guayaquil fire department told local television station Ecuavisa that the person killed was a cab driver who was nearby. He added that police were inspecting all vehicles in the surrounding area as well.

“We’re evacuating all of the buildings as a precaution,” Montanero said. Asked if it could have been a car bomb, he said they would have to wait for police to investigate. “We don’t know, but a normal car doesn’t blow up like that,” he said.

Guayaquil’s police chief Francisco Zumárraga said police had found a “new threat” and that there would be a controlled detonation. He said they would find those responsible.

The Attorney General’s Office said that it had opened an investigation and was interviewing witnesses and reviewing surveillance camera recordings.

There were a series of car bombing in Ecuador in 2023, as violence surged in the weeks after a presidential candidate was assassinated.

In March, a vehicle exploded outside Ecuador’s largest prison on the outskirts of Guayaquil, killing a prison guard. The bomb was attributed to a criminal network. Other vehicle explosions last year in Quito caused minor damage, but no deaths.

But Gov. Humberto Plaza of Guayas province, whose capital is Guayaquil, said Tuesday’s explosion was “terrorism plain and simple” and promised that police would find those responsible.

“We’re going to grab them and they’re going to pay and these people are going to be prosecuted for terrorism,” he said.

The area is packed with restaurants and stores, some of whose windows were broken by the explosion.

When Iran struck a series of targets in the heart of north Tel Aviv with ballistic missiles on June 13, Israeli authorities immediately cordoned off the area to prevent journalists from filming the damage. “The building on this compound was just hit,” Trey Yingst of Fox News reported as he arrived that evening at the site of HaKirya, Israel’s Defense Ministry headquarters, and the nearby Azrieli Center. But within seconds, Israeli police officers arrived to aggressively shunt Yingst away from where he was standing, just north of the HaKirya Bridge on the west side of Menachem Begin Road. That day, Iranian missiles struck the north tower of the Da Vinci apartment complex roughly 550 meters southwest of Yingst’s location. The Grayzone has determined that the building sits immediately south of the “Canarit” / “Kannarit” Israeli Air Force towers and above an underground military intelligence bunker jointly administered by the US and Israeli militaries. According to an analysis of leaked emails, public documents, and Israeli news reports, the location is host to a highly secretive, electromagnetically shielded intelligence facility known as “Site 81.”

Israel aggressively censors information relating to its urban military and intelligence facilities while simultaneously accusing its adversaries of engaging in ‘human shielding’ – a practice of protecting military targets with civilian populations that is prohibited by international humanitarian law. While the existence of a U.S. Army project to expand Site 81 to a 6,000 square-meter facility was widely reported from government records circa 2013, the specific location remained unknown. A photo taken outside of Site 81 has now been geolocated to the grounds of the Da Vinci apartment complex, which one resident decried as a shield for the Israeli military headquarters. Leaked emails from a former Israeli military Chief of Staff further indicate that Site 81 is an important command and control node. The Jerusalem Post also reported that an Iranian missile that struck the Da Vinci towers was “just a stone’s throw from Netanyahu’s office,” which was then known as “Building 22.” The prime minister’s office began undergoing renovations just weeks after the 2025 Twelve Day War between Israel and Iran, and is rumored to have been damaged in the strike. The Israeli military has constructed a larger underground command center in Kirya known as the “Fortress of Zion,” extending an older command center known as “The Pit.” Given its temporal, spatial, and functional proximity, it is likely that “The Pit” was connected to Site 81. Journalists from Israel Hayom and The New York Times have visited the Fortress of Zion but not revealed its precise location or that of its entrance.

Geolocating ‘Site 81’

Despite the end of U.S. legislation banning its publication, Google Maps continues to blur satellite imagery containing any hint of sensitive Israeli strategic information. At the section of Leonardo da Vinci St. directly in front of the Da Vinci Towers, Google took its pro-Israel censorship a step further, refusing to offer street view images of the location. The area east of Leonardo Da Vinci St. and west of Azrieli Center is also censored by the Moscow-based Yandex Maps, with both satellite imagery and metadata of the Da Vinci towers completely blocked. A photo of Site 81 published by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in February 2013 as part of a corrosion test of the underground structure’s concrete overlay and galvanized steel plating can be geolocated to what is now the site of the Da Vinci apartment towers, with the southern of the two 18-story Israeli Air Force Kannarit towers just meters away.

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The Kirya complex situated among human shields

A detailed report from France 24 regarding Israeli censorship of reporting on the Iranian strikes concluded that coverage of the attack on the 42-story Da Vinci Towers had likely been purposefully delayed, stating that “it looks like censorship is at play.” The outlet noted that “Israeli newspaper Haaretz waited until June 29 to mention this strike in an article – a full two weeks after the attack took place, even though the images of it had already circulated online.” When recounting the incident to Israeli media weeks later, one resident recalled being informed of the tower’s true purpose in a conversation with a friend, who asked: “Brother, don’t you get that they approved the construction of all those towers to protect the Kirya?” “Today, I realize I’ve been paying 12,000 shekels [$3,650 USD] a month to protect the Kirya,” the resident explained, using the common shorthand for the Israeli military headquarters.

The geolocation of the Site 81 photo suggests that the Da Vinci Towers are also protecting the secretive underground intelligence facility. The bunker is apparently located less than 100 meters from a children’s playground, alongside a large community center which opened at the base of the towers in July 2023. By situating some of its most sensitive military installations in the heart of a civilian area, Israel has engaged in the human shielding practice it routinely accuses Palestinians of exploiting. The tenants of an eight-story commercial building nestled inside the Da Vinci complex also enjoy direct ties to military intelligence. The Israeli generative artificial intelligence company AI21 Labs, which was founded by veterans of the IDF’s signals intelligence arm, Unit 8200, earlier this year confirmed the participation of AI21 employees in developing a ChatGPT-like military AI tool targeting Palestinians. AI21 – which has also been affiliated with Stanford University – announced its lease of space on the fourth and fifth floors of the Da Vinci office building in late 2023.

Israeli-American capital finances the towers

Next door to the Da Vinci complex, the Kannarit towers were built by the major Israeli construction company Danya Cebus, which said the work was carried out as part of a joint venture with another firm known as Solel Boneh. The controlling stake of Soleh Boneh’s parent company, Shikun & Binui, was passed from Shari Arison, formerly Israel’s richest woman, to the Los Angeles-based real estate developer Netanal H. “Naty” Saidoff in mid-2018. Saidoff has overseen several Israeli government-affiliated nonprofits in the Los Angeles area, including by chairing the Likud-oriented Israeli-American Council (IAC) and underwriting the legal program of StandWithUs, a pro-Israel training group. Saidoff’s fellow board member at Shikun & Binui, Sagi Balasha, was the first CEO of both the IAC and the Israeli government-funded propaganda initiative, Concert/Voices of Israel.

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Public US contracting records show that the Plano, Texas-based branch of the German engineering solutions company M+W Group – now known as Exyte – began a $7.4 million contract for Site 81 in June 2011, spanning the company’s support for the Army Corps study. The much larger ‘Phase 2’ of the Site 81 project was subsequently awarded to the controversial Oxford Construction of Pennsylvania for $29.6 million in August 2013, with the contracts being shifted to Oxford Federal after a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2017. In 2018, Oxford Construction was slapped with a lawsuit accusing its owners of racketeering, fraud, and negligent misrepresentation. A final $758,461 payment to Oxford Federal for its ‘Phase 2’ work on Site 81 was processed on February 26, 2019.

Leaked emails highlight Site 81’s use for “command and control”

A previously unreported leaked email exchange between ex-NATO commander James Stavridis and former Israeli military Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi appears to confirm the presence of a command and control network operating inside the Site 81 bunker – smack in the middle of a densely populated civilian area.

“Hi Gabi,” Stavridis wrote to Ashkenazi on September 1, 2015. “I am working with an exciting company called Think Logical here in the USA. They build command and control networks, and just won a big contract out at Site 81 with the IDF [Israel Defense Forces].” The Grayzone discovered Ashkenazi’s email in a leaked archive from an apparently Iranian-linked hacktivist group known as Handala, which was curated by the American nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets. “I am enjoying my new job as Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy here in Boston — a top school of international relations,” stated the email from Stavridis, which sought Ashkenazi’s assistance in recruiting “someone to help [Thinklogical] navigate in Israel” as a consultant – ideally, “a retired IDF 1-star” general. Following a request for comment from The Grayzone, Stavridis appears to have included his wife and executive assistant in an accidental reply which read, “Just seeing this? Are you sure!? He is ending.” The message was accompanied by a lengthy footer describing Stavridis’ current roles as vice chairman of global affairs of The Carlyle Group and chairman of the board of The Rockefeller Foundation. Gen. Ashkenazi and Mr. Pajer did not respond to requests for comment. The Israel Defense Forces also neglected to reply to requests emailed to three separate spokesperson addresses.

Most of the military aid during the observation period came from the new NATO PURL initiative. It was agreed in July at a meeting between NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and US President Donald Trump and enables NATO to acquire “ready-to-use” weapons from US stockpiles for Ukraine, financed by other member states. By August, eight NATO countries had participated: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. They allocated a total of EUR 1.9 billion.

Military aid falls by 43 percent compared to the first half of the year

Although the new mechanism was launched, military aid declined significantly in July and August. After the US stopped announcing new aid packages at the beginning of 2025, European countries stepped in and significantly expanded their military support. As a result, the monthly average of military aid allocations in the first half of 2025 exceeded those of 2022–2024—despite the lack of US contributions. However, this momentum collapsed in the summer: military allocations from European countries fell by 57 percent compared to January–June 2025, even when their contributions to the NATO PURL initiative were included. The monthly average of all military aid during this period was thus 43 percent below the level of the first half of 2025.

“As military support for Ukraine increasingly depends on new weapons procurement—which often takes months or even years to implement—the NATO PURL initiative is an important vehicle to provide Ukraine with ready-to-use weapons from US stockpiles,” says Christoph Trebesch, head of the Ukraine Support Tracker and Research Director at the Kiel Institute. “At the same time, the decline in military aid in July and August is surprising. Despite the NATO PURL initiative, Europe is scaling back its overall military support. What will be crucial now is how the figures evolve in the autumn.”

EU maintains high level of civilian aid

Between July and August, EUR 7.5 billion in financial and humanitarian aid was allocated, which is in line with previous years and the first half of this year. Of the newly allocated funds, 86 percent originate from EU institutions, including new tranches under the Ukraine Facility (EUR 5.4 billion) and the ERA Loan Mechanism (EUR 1 billion). “The overall level of financial and humanitarian support has remained comparatively stable—even in the absence of US contributions,” noted Christoph Trebesch. “It is now crucial that this stability extends to military support as well, as Ukraine relies on it to sustain its defense efforts on the ground.”

About the Ukraine Support Tracker

The Ukraine Support Tracker tracks and quantifies military, financial, and humanitarian assistance pledged to Ukraine since January 24, 2022. Included are 41 countries, specifically the EU member states, the other members of the G7, Australia, South Korea, Turkey, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland, Turkey, China, Taiwan, India, and Iceland. It includes pledges made by the governments of these countries to the Ukrainian government; aid pledged by the EU Commission and the European Investment Bank is listed separately; private donations or those from international organizations such as the IMF are not included in the main database. Nor does it include aid to Ukraine’s neighbors, such as Moldova, or to other countries, such as for the reception of refugees. Data sources include official government announcements and international media reports. Aid in kind, such as medical supplies, food, or military equipment, is estimated using market prices or information from previous relief operations. In cases of doubt, the higher available value is used. The Ukraine Support Tracker is constantly being expanded, corrected and improved. Feedback and comments on our methodology paper and dataset are very welcome. You can reach us at ukrainetracker@ifw-kiel.de.