| Drop Site Daily: October 15, 2025Israel continues attacks in Gaza despite ceasefire, killing at least two Palestinians on Wednesday and arresting 15, according to Al Jazeera. Forensic authorities in Gaza work to identify 45 bodies handed over by Israel, some bearing signs of field executions. The Israeli military claims one of the bodies handed over by Hamas is not an Israeli captive. Hamas executes men accused of collaborating with Israel or looting during the war, President Donald Trump says it “didn’t bother [him] that much.” Trump explicitly links the $20 billion bailout of Argentina’s economy to President Javier Milei’s 2026 electoral prospects. Federal agents deployed tear gas and detained a man in Chicago’s Albany Park, marking the latest federal assault on the city’s immigrant community. More than 45,000 nurses and health care workers at Kaiser Permanente start a five-day strike. The U.S. struck another vessel of alleged “narco-traffickers” off the Venezuelan coast, following the Republican-controlled Senate’s defeat of a measure that would have blocked such strikes. Clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan resumed, resulting in dozens of casualties and damage to a Pakistani Taliban training facility. Russia attacks Kharkiv overnight and takes control of another village in Donetsk, while 19 civilians were killed in an Islamic Allied Democratic Forces assault in Congo’s North Kivu province. This is Drop Site Daily, our new, free daily news recap. We send it Monday through Friday. Morgue workers unload the bodies of Palestinians that had been in Israeli custody, after they were transported by Red Crescent vehicles and refrigerated trucks, to the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 15, 2025. (Photo by OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images.) The Genocide in GazaAt least two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday, and Israeli tanks fired on Palestinians in the town of Bani Suheila and the Sheikh Nasser neighborhood, east of Khan Younis—despite the ongoing ceasefire—according to Al Jazeera. Israeli forces also arrested 15 people in the town of Nassr, northeast of Rafah in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported. The bodies of 25 Palestinians, including 16 recovered from under the rubble and one who died of their wounds, arrived at hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours, according to the ministry of health.8 Palestinians were confirmed killed by Israel over the past day, despite the ceasefire. At least 35 Palestinians were wounded. The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 is now 67,938 killed, with 170,169 injured. Forensic authorities in Gaza on Wednesday started the identification process of 45 bodies of Palestinians that Israel released on Tuesday, according to the health ministry. Under the ceasefire deal, Israel is to hand over 15 bodies of Palestinians for each deceased Israeli captive. Israel handed over the bodies through the Red Cross without identification. It was not immediately known if they were Palestinians who died in Israeli prisons or bodies taken from Gaza by Israeli troops. Health officials in Gaza reportedly said the bodies arrived with signs of gunshot wounds and their hands and legs cuffed, and some still had blindfolds on. Several of the bodies bore signs of field executions and others were found with tank tracks on them, according to Al Jazeera. The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons urged Israel on Tuesday to provide all available information on bodies returned to Gaza, including “names of the victims and details about the circumstances of their deaths.” The health ministry said it didn’t add the 45 bodies that Israel transferred to Gaza on Tuesday to its tally. An additional 45 bodies of dead Palestinians were handed over by Israel on Wednesday, according to the health ministry, bringing the total number handed over to 90. Footage obtained by Drop Site on Wednesday showed refrigerated trucks and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicles waiting at the Kissufim crossing to transport the bodies of dozens of Palestinians to Gaza. The Israeli military said Wednesday that one of the bodies handed over by Hamas on Tuesday is not that of an Israeli captive who was held in Gaza. Four bodies were handed over by Hamas on Tuesday following a previous four handed over on Monday. The Israeli military said that after the “examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any of the hostages.” Al Jazeera cited an unnamed source in the leadership of the resistance who claimed the body was, in fact, that of a captured Israeli soldier. Sheikh Husni al-Mughni, head of the Supreme Committee for Palestinian Tribal Affairs, defended Hamas’s recent executions of men accused of collaborating with Israel and looting during the war, saying Gaza’s security forces imposed “field justice” on gangs that had terrorized civilians. In an interview with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hadath, al-Mughni said the accused were long known to their communities and had ignored repeated warnings to surrender, adding that “when someone murders a ten-year-old child for a bag of flour, he deserves death and worse.” Addressing the issue from the White House on Tuesday, President Trump said Hamas “did take out a couple of gangs that were very bad… and killed a number of gang members,” and added, “that didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you—that’s okay.” Trump compared the Gaza executions to his administration’s crackdowns on violent gangs in the U.S., claiming the approach helped make Washington, D.C., “safe” again.
Ceasefire UpdatesThe Egyptian Red Crescent said at least 400 trucks carrying food, fuel, and medical supplies were headed for the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the branch of the Israeli military that oversees the West Bank and Gaza, said on Tuesday that it would only allow half of the 600 daily aid trucks agreed upon in the ceasefire deal, saying Hamas violated the agreement by not releasing all the bodies of dead Israeli captives. Meanwhile, the European Union said on Wednesday that it is on standby to deploy a long-standing humanitarian mission, known as EUBAM, at the Rafah border crossing in Gaza, if conditions on the ground improve. On Tuesday, October 14, 2025, President Donald Trump warned that Palestinian militants must “disarm, or we will disarm them,” saying the process “will happen quickly—and perhaps violently.” He also claimed he had spoken to Hamas and that the group agreed to disarm, while senior leaders in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other resistance factions have repeatedly rejected disarmament in public interviews. From an article at The Guardian: Naseem al-Radee and Mohammed al-Asaliya were among 1,700 Palestinians released from Israeli detention after prolonged, often brutal confinement without charge. Both described systematic torture, medical neglect, starvation, and unsanitary conditions in prisons like Nafha, leaving detainees severely underweight and with lasting injuries. Their release coincided with devastating personal losses in Gaza: Radee learned his wife and most of his children were killed during his 22-month imprisonment. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said a 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee, approved by Israel and all Palestinian factions including Hamas, will manage daily life in postwar Gaza. The group will operate under a U.S.-chaired “Board of Peace” overseeing reconstruction funds, while Israel must withdraw to allow aid and deployment. Egypt will soon host a Gaza reconstruction conference with U.S. and German support. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed that “there will be Jewish settlements in Gaza” during an event in Sderot. Speaking days after a ceasefire with Hamas forced Israeli forces to withdraw from parts of the Strip, Smotrich, a leading settler movement figure in Netanyahu’s coalition, argued that Israel has “no security” without settlements and promised “a series of victories and big miracles” in the future.
West BankBetween January 2023 and June 2025, more than 3,500 attacks by Israeli settlers and forces in the West Bank killed 38 Palestinians and injured 3,939, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Most incidents occurred in Ramallah, Nablus, and Hebron between October 2023 and October 2024, as over 2,900 Palestinians have been displaced due to state violence and movement restrictions.
U.S. NewsPresident Trump announced a $20 billion bailout for Argentina, explicitly linking the aid to the upcoming October 26 election and the success of Argentine President Javier Milei, who admires and emulates Trump. He acknowledged the relief would not primarily benefit the U.S., saying, “We don’t have to do it. It’s not going to make a big difference for our country,” but conditioned it on Milei’s victory and formally endorsed him. Critics, including Sen. Chuck Grassley, warned the bailout could harm American farmers, while Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed it as supporting center-right governance and countering socialism in Latin America. President Trump unveiled a new label for his critics in the Biden administration on Tuesday, calling them “high-IQ radical left lunatics” during a joint appearance with Argentina’s President Javier Milei. He claimed these figures—including “the person who operated the autopen” for President Biden—were the ones truly running the White House. Turning to New York politics, Trump attacked State Assemblymember and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as “a communist” who “hates police” and “hates Jewish people, but has Jewish people supporting him,” warning he would not “send a lot of money to New York” if Mamdani wins, nor be “generous to Argentina” should Milei’s opponents prevail in upcoming elections. The State Department is revoking the visas of at least six foreign nations over social media comments they made about the killing of far-right figure Charlie Kirk. The State Department posted on X that: “The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans. The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk. Here are just a few examples of aliens who are no longer welcome in the U.S.” The post went on to quote and show screenshots of social media posts by different visa holders from Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Paraguay and South Africa and the words “Visa revoked.” Federal agents deployed tear gas and detained a man in Chicago’s Albany Park on Sunday, prompting neighbors and local officials to mobilize in protest. Residents described agents shoving people to the ground and failing to issue required warnings under a recent court order limiting use of force. Community members said the response reflected impunity and intimidation, with some comparing it to authoritarian tactics abroad. Meta removed a Facebook page used to track Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents following a Department of Justice request, citing violations of its policies against coordinated harm. Attorney General Pam Bondi argued the tracking endangered ICE officers, while app users and developers defended it as a First Amendment tool to monitor enforcement and protect themselves amid heightened immigration actions under President Trump’s administration. Other ICE-tracking groups remain active on Facebook despite the removal. More than 45,000 nurses and health care workers at Kaiser Permanente started a five-day strike, including more than 31,000 on strike in California, after months of bargaining. The company proposed a 21.5% wage increase over four years, while workers are advocating 25% across the board. The workers cited severe burnout and wage freezes during periods of inflation as causes for their strike, and they carried signs saying that Kaiser CEO Greg Adams is making the equivalent of $7,211 an hour. Federal agents have transferred about 20 migrants to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, repopulating the offshore detention site for the first time since October 1. The detainees, all believed to be men, temporarily bring the number of migrants held there since February to roughly 710, though their identities and nationalities were not immediately confirmed. Civil liberties lawyers are seeking a court order to end the program, arguing the administration has ample detention capacity inside the U.S. and has never before sent noncitizens to Guantánamo for civil immigration purposes. Bankruptcies of Tricolor Holdings and First Brands have exposed structural risks in the subprime auto-finance sector, where off-balance-sheet schemes and non-depository financial institutions shift debt onto vulnerable consumers, while Wall Street absorbs limited scrutiny, according to a new article from Clark Randall at Jacobin. Rising car-payment delinquencies, soaring insurance and repair costs, and extended loans are leaving working-class Americans—especially young and low-income borrowers—deeply indebted. The situation reflects a “K-shaped” economy in which financial-market optimism increasingly rests on the struggles of ordinary consumers. President Donald Trump said his administration will announce a new list of federal programs to cut Friday if the government shutdown continues, targeting what he called “the most egregious, socialist, semi communist, probably not full communist” programs supported by Democrats. He framed the shutdown as an opportunity to cancel funding for initiatives his party opposes, following earlier freezes on nearly $2 billion in New York infrastructure projects and $8 billion in climate-related programs. The Office of Management and Budget is preparing for further layoffs and operational slowdowns as the standoff extends into its third week. The U.S. military killed six alleged drug smugglers off Venezuela’s coast on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said, calling the men “narcoterrorists” affiliated with a designated terrorist organization. Trump claimed the strike, ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth under his “Standing Authorities as Commander-in-Chief,” occurred in international waters and is part of an ongoing campaign against Latin American drug cartels. The operation follows a narrow Senate Republican defeat of a measure aimed at blocking the strikes, which have killed 27 people since September, though the administration has not publicly verified the suspects’ identities or drug connections. A Florida judge has issued a restraining order against Rep. Cory Mills for “protection against dating violence” following two public hearings. The order stems from allegations by Miss United States and GOP official Lindsey Langston, who accused Mills of harassment, threats to release intimate material, and violent threats. Mills had denied the claims; the court’s decision follows police reports and evidence first reported by Roger Sollenberger for Drop Site earlier this year.
International NewsClashes continued Tuesday along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, with both sides trading fire in Kurram and other regions, leaving dozens of casualties and damaged military posts, including a Pakistani Taliban training facility. Relations have deteriorated after recent cross-border attacks and airstrikes, with sharply differing casualty counts and mutual accusations between the two countries, while all border crossings remain closed. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have called for calm, but fighting has persisted despite their appeals. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, suspected Islamic State-linked rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) killed 19 civilians and wounded eight in an overnight attack on Mukondo village in North Kivu, also burning 26 homes. Attackers disguised in Congolese army uniforms carried out the assault, heightening fear in a region already destabilized by ADF activity and the recent Rwandan-backed M23 rebel advance. Authorities have not yet received a claim of responsibility, with many residents fleeing into the surrounding bush. Russian forces carried out overnight drone and glide-bomb attacks on Kharkiv, hitting the city’s main hospital, wounding seven, and forcing the evacuation of 50 patients, while taking control of Balahan in Donetsk, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials. UN aid vehicles near Bilozerka were also attacked, with two trucks set on fire. Authorities ordered evacuations for 409 families near Kupiansk amid worsening security. Power outages hit Kyiv and other regions following Russian strikes on the energy system, as Russian officials say they are working to restore power to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators filled the streets of Udine in northeastern Italy ahead of Tuesday night’s World Cup qualifier with Israel. According to the Financial Times, Italian authorities deployed troops, drones, counterterrorism units, and rooftop snipers amid public calls to cancel the match over Israel’s participation. As Israel’s anthem played, much of the crowd responded with boos and pro-Palestinian chants. The match took place after two years of genocide in Gaza and amid growing demands to bar Israel from international sports. Italy won 3–0. Thousands took to the streets of cities across Spaing on Wednesday as part of a general strike called by major labor and student unions to protest the genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for accountability for those responsible for Gaza’s destruction, saying “peace cannot mean forgetting.” Speaking to Spanish radio’s Cadena SER, he stressed that there should be no impunity for the main actors in the genocide, citing ongoing ICC cases against Israeli leaders. Spain has been among Europe’s most vocal critics of Israel’s two-year war in Gaza, with Sánchez last month explicitly labeling the actions a genocide. Poland has urged Germany to stop prosecuting Ukrainians accused of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which was bombed in 2022, arguing that such cases undermine NATO unity and benefit Russia. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland will not extradite suspects, while Polish security chief Sławomir Cenckiewicz told the Financial Times (FT) the prosecutions contradict Western interests. The FT also reported that Poland extended the detention of a Ukrainian suspect, and another held in Italy is resisting extradition to Germany. The Nord Stream was a major conduit for the export of Russian natural gas to Europe that was destroyed in an alleged sabotage attack following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, visited Moscow for the first time since leading a military offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad last year in a visit that marks a major shift in Russian policy towards Syria. Despite having long backed Assad militarily, Russia has now moved to engage with the new government, with President Vladimir Putin welcoming al-Sharaa at the Kremlin and emphasizing historic ties between the two nations. The visit signals Moscow’s effort to preserve influence and its limited military presence in Syria after granting asylum to Assad, who fled the country following his sudden ouster in December.
More From Drop SiteDrop Site contributor Emily Wilder recounts her harrowing experience aboard the humanitarian flotilla Conscience, intercepted by Israeli forces on October 8th while in international waters near the Suez Canal. Over two days, Wilder and nearly 100 medics, journalists, and activists endured intimidation, beatings, invasive searches, and hours of confinement in extreme heat, before being transported to Ketziot prison in the Negev Desert. Detainees faced strip searches, minimal rations, and restricted access to medical care, while guards monitored every movement and subjected prisoners to verbal abuse. After international and consular interventions, Wilder and others were deported ahead of President Trump’s arrival in Jerusalem, though some flotilla members remained in detention for several more days. The account highlights the ongoing imprisonment of over 9,000 Palestinians, even as nearly 2,000 were released under the new ceasefire agreement. Read the full article in Jewish Currents, here.
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