Confirmed Gaza death toll tops 62,000
Drop Site Daily: August 19, 2025
The confirmed death toll in Gaza has crossed 62,000 with at least 26 Palestinians killed over the past 24 hours, including four while seeking aid. Gaza City under siege. Hamas accepts the latest ceasefire proposal, while Israel has yet to issue a response. Gaza fisherman discuss extermination campaign by Israeli government. U.S. to revoke more than 6,000 student visas. Trump and Zelensky meet. Congolese government and rebels fail to meet deadline for negotiations.
The Genocide in Gaza
- Israeli forces killed at least 26 people across Gaza since dawn, four of whom were seeking aid, according to Al Jazeera. The Ministry of Health recorded 60 people killed over the past 24 hours, including 31 while seeking aid. Three more people died due to starvation. In total, Israel has killed 62,064 people and injured 156,573 since October 7, 2023, according to the Ministry of Health.
- Among those killed was Palestinian journalist Islam al-Koumi in heavy Israeli airstrikes last night on the al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. The number of journalists killed by Israel since the start of the war is now at least 239, according to the Government Media Office.
- Over the past three days, only 266 aid trucks entered Gaza out of the 1,800 required, with many looted amid what officials describe as deliberate chaos created by Israel to worsen humanitarian conditions. In the last 22 days, just 1,937 trucks entered—less than 15% of the 13,200 needed—leaving Gaza’s 2.4 million people without sufficient food, medicine, and other essentials.
- The UN Human Rights office on Tuesday said that Israel is not allowing in enough aid into Gaza. "In the past few weeks, Israeli authorities have only allowed aid to enter in quantities that remain far below what would be required to avert widespread starvation," U.N. Human Rights Office Spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told a press briefing in Geneva. He added that the risk of starvation in Gaza was a "direct result of the Israeli government's policy of blocking humanitarian aid."
- Israel’s military leadership convened a high-profile “operational learning” conference Monday at the Israeli forces’ Gaza Division headquarters, with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Katz, and top commanders in attendance. Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir declared the war at a “turning point,” ordering preparations for an escalation in Gaza City under Operation Gideon’s Chariots, while framing the campaign as laying conditions for captives’ release. The carefully publicized event, complete with photos and video, comes as Israel faces its largest nationwide protests since the war began, with demonstrators demanding a deal to end the war and free hostages.
- The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), backed by the U.S. and Israel, has launched a pilot “reservation system” for food distribution that requires participants to be photographed, entered into a database, and issued ID cards for ration collection. Hamas previously banned collaboration with GHF, accusing it of serving as a tool of occupation rather than genuine relief. Rights groups warn the program deepens surveillance and control in Gaza, where distribution sites remain militarized and deadly for civilians seeking food.
- Al Jazeera yesterday shared footage of 10-year-old Amina killed by an Israeli drone as she fetched water. Media outlet Sahat Englishspoke with her father, who described the day she was taken from him and how Israel also killed her mother and younger brother in North Gaza.
- Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held a press conference at the Rafah crossing with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa on Monday, and accused Israel of deliberately blocking aid and crippling the crossing’s operations. The Rafah border crossing has been closed since May 2024 when Israel invaded Rafah and took control of the Palestinian side of the crossing. Meanwhile, Abdelatty told The Associated Press that they are inviting U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff to join the ceasefire talks.
- Amid Gaza’s devastation, a grim real estate market has emerged, with war-damaged apartments—charred, collapsed, or patched with tin and tarps—being bought and sold, according to a report in Ultra Palestine. With 90% of Gaza City’s housing destroyed and towns like Rafah and Beit Hanoun leveled, families are opting for bombed-out flats as an alternative to tents or high rents. Sellers need cash to survive or flee, while traders buy cheap, betting prices will rise if a truce arrives. Apartments once valued at $40–45k now sell for $13–20k, often via banking apps, in neighborhoods perceived as safer or less destroyed.
- Zakaria Bakr, head of Gaza’s Fishermen’s Committees, says Israel is carrying out a systematic campaign to wipe out the strip’s fishing sector—once its second most important food source—as part of a wider war on food production. Since October, over 210 fishermen have been killed, ports and fish farms bombed, and 95% of the industry destroyed. Only 450 of 4,500 fishermen can still work, confined to shallow waters where they remain targets of Israeli fire. A new Gisha report confirms: Israel has banned all Palestinian access to the sea, even during ceasefires..
- A “shocking new record” of 383 aid workers were killed around the world in 2024, nearly half of them in Gaza, the U.N. humanitarian office said Tuesday in a statement to mark World Humanitarian Day. The humanitarian group Save the Children said: “The sharp rise in fatalities over the past three years has been driven largely by the war in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed 173 humanitarian workers in 2025 alone—more than the total number of aid workers killed globally in 2022.”
Diplomatic Negotiations
- Al Jazeera Arabic’s Tamer Al-Mishal has reported details of the new truce proposal accepted by Hamas and allied factions, though Israel has yet to issue a response. Hamas itself has not released the text, and Drop Site has not independently verified the specifics.
- Captives & Prisoners
- Hamas would release 10 Israeli captives — eight immediately and two more on day 50 — along with the bodies of 18 Israelis.
- In return, Israel would free 1,700 Palestinians: 45 lifers, 15 long-term prisoners, and 1,500 Gazans detained since October 7.
- Military Redeployment
- Israeli troops would pull back to 1,000m from the border and 1,200m from civilian areas.
- Israel would remain at the 1,200m line in Beit Hanoun and Shuja’iya, a concession Hamas accepted to ease famine conditions.
- Mediators’ Role
- Egypt and Qatar pledged to work against a return to war if no final deal follows the 60-day truce, but this is not written into the proposal.
- Hamas has also dropped its earlier demand for a U.S. guarantee.
- Deferred Issues
- Key questions are pushed to later talks: the future of resistance arms, possible Arab/international forces in Gaza, governance of the Strip, and the final terms for ending the war.
- The only outstanding dispute is over the list of Palestinian prisoners for release, though factions said this will not block the deal.
- Qatari Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Majed al-Ansari, speaking at a press conference in Doha on Tuesday, said that the proposal Hamas agreed to was “almost identical” to Witkoff’s previous proposal. “Almost 98 percent of what has been agreed to by the Israelis was contained in this recent proposal,” al-Ansari said.
- President Trump wrote on his social media platform on Monday: "We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be."
- In a Channel 4 interview following Hamas’s acceptance of a phased ceasefire proposal, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein refused to confirm whether Israel would accept it. He dismissed mass protests in Tel Aviv calling for a deal, falsely claimed Israel “accepts every deal” despite walking away from the Doha talks last month, and denied the existence of any starvation policy in Gaza. When pressed by Channel 4 about prior ceasefire breakdowns and Gaza’s humanitarian situation, Marmorstein insisted, “Israel did not break the ceasefire… there is no starvation policy in Gaza. Full stop.”
- Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as a “weak politician,” escalating a dispute between the two countries after Canberra announced Australia would recognize Palestinian statehood. “History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews,” Netanyahu said in a social media post.