Israel may be preparing for large-scale massacres in Gaza City, UNRWA warns; Trump tells Congress the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels

Drop Site Daily: October 3, 2025

At least 63 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours. World Health Organization report finds that nearly 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, a quarter of them children, have suffered “life-changing injuries.” As Israeli officials label the roughly 250,000 people remaining in Gaza City as terrorists and terror supporters, UNRWA warns it may be preparing for large-scale massacres. The last remaining boat of the Global Sumud Flotilla is intercepted by the Israeli military; over 450 flotilla participants in Israeli custody are being processed for deportation. President Donald Trump declares the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. Amid government shutdown, White House freezes $2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects “to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.” Drone sightings over Munich Airport force suspension of flights. Iran’s president discusses relocating the capital from Tehran. Protesters clash with security forces in Kashmir.

This is Drop Site Daily, our new, free daily news recap. We send it Monday through Friday.

Abdulrahaman El-Nashash, a 12-year-old boy seriously wounded in his left leg during an Israeli strike, had his leg amputated following surgery in Gaza. Photo by Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images.

The Genocide in Gaza

• At least 49 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza today, including 31 in Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera. Over the past 24 hours, 63 dead and 227 injured arrived at hospitals in the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s health ministry, while 15 Palestinians were killed and 80 injured while seeking aid. The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 is now 66,288 killed, with 169,165 injured.

• Two Palestinians, including a child, died of starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, according to the Gaza health ministry, bringing the total since the start of the war to 457 Palestinians, including 152 children. Meanwhile, northern Gaza has been effectively cut off from aid as Israel closed the main coastal road, disallowing travel north, and there are no aid distribution sites in the north.

• UNRWA warned that statements by Israel officials labeling the roughly 250,000 civilians remaining in Gaza City and northern Gaza as “terrorists or terror supporters” suggest Israel may be planning large-scale massacres. Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini condemned the rhetoric, saying it amounts to intent to kill “women, children, elderly and vulnerable people unable to move out.” On October 1, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said, “This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south. Those who remain in Gaza will be considered terrorists and terror supporters.”

• Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday that Palestinian nurse Tasneem Marwan Al-Hams was abducted while she was on her way to work in Khan Younis. The incident came just two months after her father Marwan al-Hams, who oversaw field hospitals in Gaza for the health ministry, was abducted by undercover Israeli forces in northern Rafah. The ministry called Tasneem’s abduction a “flagrant violation of humanitarian laws,” held Israel responsible for her safety, and urged international action to protect medical staff and their families.

• Médecins Sans Frontières condemned the killing of one of its staff, Omar Hayek, 42, in an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah on October 2. Hayek, an occupational therapist with MSF since 2018, was waiting at a bus stop with coworkers when the attack hit; all wore MSF vests. Four other staff—including a physiotherapist, surgeon, supply officer, and finance assistant—were wounded, one critically. Hayek, the sole provider for his family, is the 14th MSF worker killed in Gaza since October 2023. MSF called for a ceasefire and an end to the bloodshed.

• The World Health Organization released a new report on Thursday that found nearly 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza have suffered “life-changing injuries” since the war began nearly two years ago. One in four of those injuries are in children. More than 5,000 people have had amputations.

Ceasefire Negotiations

• Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that Hamas has until Sunday at 6 p.m. to respond to the 20-point plan for Gaza: “Every Country has signed on! If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas. THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.” The plan, crafted by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, Israeli minister Ron Dermer, and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, was created without Palestinian input. (In case you missed it, Drop Site’s interview with senior Hamas official Mohammad Nazzal on Trump’s 20-point plan is here.)

• Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty outlined various flaws in Trump’s Gaza plan while pressuring Hamas to accept it in comments in Paris on Thursday. “If Hamas refuses, then it would be very difficult. And of course, we will have more escalation. So that’s why we are exerting our intensive efforts in order to make this plan applicable and to get the approval of Hamas.” He added, “There are a lot of holes that need to be filled, we need more discussions on how to implement it, especially on two important issues—governance and security arrangements. We are supportive of the Trump plan and the vision to end war and need to move forward.”

Global Sumud Flotilla

• The Mikeno, a Greek-flagged humanitarian aid ship with a multinational crew, became the first civilian vessel since 2009 to breach Israel’s naval blockade, entering Gaza’s territorial waters on October 2. Crew and nearby flotilla ships confirmed the approach, with Turkish delegate Ramazan Tunç saying the ship crossed into Palestinian waters before Israeli forces later seized it. Activists described the Mikeno’s brief breakthrough as a symbolic crack in the blockade wall.

• The last remaining boat of the Global Sumud Flotilla, the Marinette, was intercepted by the Israeli military on Friday at 10:29am local time, according to organizers. The over 450 participants from the flotilla were initially held at the port of Ashdod before being taken to the maximum-security Ketziot Prison in southern Israel. Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir was filmed visiting the site where flotilla participants were being held and accused them of supporting “terrorism” as hundreds of them were seated on the floor.

• The Israeli foreign ministry said on X that “Procedures are under way to...finalize the deportation of the participants. Already 4 Italian citizens have been deported. The rest are in the process of being deported. Israel is keen to end this procedure as quickly as possible.”

• The press watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned Israel’s detention of journalists who were among hundreds of participants arrested on the flotilla. According to RSF, a total of around 20 international journalists were on board to cover the action. Drop Site journalist Alex Colston is among them. “Arresting journalists and preventing them from doing their work is a serious violation of the right to inform and be informed,” the head of the RSF Crisis Desk, Martin Roux, said in a statement. “RSF condemns the illegal arrest of the news professionals who were on board these ships to cover a humanitarian operation of unprecedented scale.”

• Thousands took to the streets around the world again on Thursday and Friday, including in Italy, Spain, France to protest Israel’s interception of the flotilla and to call for an end to the war in Gaza. In Italy, workers and students demonstrated after the country’s largest unions called for a one-day general strike. Hundreds of trains were cancelled or delayed, some flights were cancelled, and many schools were closed.

• Code Pink published a list of U.S. citizens seized by Israel from the Global Sumud Flotilla and urged supporters to pressure their congressional representatives to secure their protection and release.

• Another flotilla of boats with dozens aboard set sail last week from Italy. The eight-vessel group was organized by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the Thousand Madleens to Gaza. Another boat, The Conscience, with more than 80 international journalists and medics on board, also departed Italy on September 30 en route to Gaza.

West Bank

• Israeli forces shot and wounded two children, including a 15-year-old, in Jenin on Thursday evening, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported. Both were transferred to a hospital with injuries to the abdomen and hands, following live fire by soldiers. The incident comes after Israeli forces killed two 14-year-old boys in the northern West Bank on September 9, identified by Defense for Children International–Palestine as Islam Abdulaziz Nouh Majarmah and Mohammad Seri Omar Masqala.

U.S. News

• Trump informed Congress this week that the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels following recent U.S. strikes on Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean, according to a memo first reported by The New York Times. “The President determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” the memo says. “The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations.” Lawmakers and experts criticize the move as dubious legal justification for unlawful military actions against civilians, arguing it stretches international law. The memo coincides with U.S. naval deployments to the Caribbean, while senators plan a War Powers Resolution to block further strikes.

• The U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is now empty of migrants after ICE transferred the last 18 detainees on Wednesday, marking a rare pause in the Trump administration’s temporary migrant detention operations there. Fewer than 700 people have been held at the base since February, far short of its planned capacity for tens of thousands, and deportees have been sent to multiple countries including Colombia, Egypt, and Vietnam. Camp 6, originally built for terrorism detainees, was the primary site, and the operation involved over 600 U.S. government personnel.

• Amid a government shutdown furloughing tens of thousands of federal workers, the Trump administration will send home a third of White House staff but retain the Department of Government Efficiency and much of the Office of Management and Budget. A contingency plan posted Thursday shows 1,179 White House employees—including all 45 DOGE officials—will stay on the job to maintain core presidential functions, while 554 staff are furloughed.

• The director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought said on Friday that the federal government put $2.1 billion earmarked for Chicago infrastructure projects on hold during the government shutdown “to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.” The move followed a similar announcement earlier this week when Vought said $18 million earmarked for infrastructure projects in New York City would be frozen due to the Trump administration’s belief that the money was “based on unconstitutional DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] principles.”

• In what reads as an effort to launder its muddied reputation, J Street, which long resisted external and internal pressure to call for a ceasefire, is the subject of a new article in the New York Times. The article begins by noting that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries accepted J Street’s endorsement for the first time last month, which the paper identifies as signaling a shift among Democrats away from the long dominant American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Democratic lawmakers are increasingly refusing AIPAC donations, skipping its Israel trips, and supporting measures that restrict U.S. weapons sales to Israel, reflecting declining American public support for the Israeli government’s conduct in Gaza. J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami told reporters that AIPAC has “run into a wall” as its stance clashes with the evolving views of Congress and voters.

• Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg again weighed in on Israel and Palestine after a widely criticized appearance in August on Pod Save America. But, within the first minute of a 10-minute segment on YouTuber Andrew Callaghan’s Channel 5, Buttigieg repeated the widely debunked claim that Hamas put babies in ovens.

International News

• Israeli warplanes conducted roughly 10 airstrikes on the Mahmoudieh and Ali al Taher areas in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Lebanese sources tell Drop Site. The strikes have ignited large fires in the region.

• Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said Thursday that the government has no choice but to relocate the capital from Tehran to the country’s south, citing severe water shortages, over-expansion, and worsening land subsidence. He told residents of Hormozgan province that he had already raised the plan with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warning that rainfall has dropped by more than half and that Tehran’s 10 million residents now consume nearly a quarter of Iran’s water supply. Pezeshkian argued the Persian Gulf coast could serve as a new hub for trade and development.

• Drone sightings over Munich Airport on Thursday night forced a suspension of flights, canceling 17 departures, diverting 15 arrivals, and stranding nearly 3,000 passengers. Operations resumed Friday morning, though investigations by police are ongoing, with authorities unable to identify the drones’ origin before they left German airspace. The incident follows recent airspace intrusions in Denmark, Estonia, Romania, and Norway, which European officials have linked to Russia over the war in Ukraine.

• U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday that Haiti’s use of lethal force against gangs, including drone strikes, was “unnecessary and disproportionate” and likely unlawful. He said police had summarily executed 174 people this year, while government drone attacks in Port-au-Prince had killed at least 559 people, including 11 children. Haiti’s transitional government contracted a private security firm led by Blackwater founder Erik Prince to supply drones as gang violence has displaced more than 1.3 million people.

• Moses Kuria, a senior politician and former trade minister in Kenya, accused ex-U.S. ambassador Meg Whitman of having “literally ruled Kenya for two years” and driving the failed Haiti mission, with former Secretary of State Antony Blinken “hapless in her wake.” Kuria called the Kenya-led deployment a “misadventure” that cost officers’ lives and collapsed after sending fewer than half the planned force, and he welcomed the October 1 UN resolution to replace it while urging Nairobi to redirect police to tackle crime at home.

• At least nine people, including three police officers, have been killed in clashes between security forces and protesters in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, officials said Thursday. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif urged calm and sent a delegation to Muzaffarabad for talks with the Awami Action Committee, whose demands include food and electricity subsidies. Despite the regional government agreeing to most demands, demonstrations have continued, with more than 150 people injured in the unrest.

• Myanmar’s military said it has retaken Kyaukme, a key district capital in Shan State that had been under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army since August 2023. State media reported the capture on Wednesday after a three-week offensive, though the claim could not be independently verified, and the TNLA accused the army of using airstrikes and heavy weapons. Kyaukme lies on a vital highway to China, and its fall marks another setback for ethnic militias ahead of elections the junta has promised in December.

• China announced tighter restrictions on European telecom suppliers Nokia and Ericsson as President Xi Jinping proceeds with a national campaign to reduce Chinese reliance on Western technology. State-backed buyers are now subjecting foreign companies in the tech sector to stricter scrutiny, with contracts undergoing opaque national security reviews by the Cyberspace Administration of China, according to a report by the Financial Times. The move to limit foreign telecom suppliers comes after the Chinese government took steps to limit the ability of chip manufacturer NVIDIA to sell to Chinese firms this summer.

• Novara Media questioned Labour MP Jess Phillips on her July 2 vote to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group, asking whether she would have taken the same approach with the Suffragettes. Watch the exchange here.

• One of the two victims killed in the midst of Thursday’s stabbing attack outside a synagogue in north Manchester in the UK died was actually shot by an armed officer, Manchester police announced on Friday. Another person hospitalized in the attack was also struck by a police bullet. The attacker, identified as 35-year-old Jihad Al-Shamie, a British citizen of Syrian descent, was armed with a knife and was killed by police soon after the attack began.

More From Drop Site

• Drop Site x The Ditch: A Nazi-linked company is among the suppliers of a 563-ton munitions shipment to Israel, the largest identified to date. The Ocean Gladiator, leaving Paulsboro, New Jersey, will carry ammunition from Germany’s Wieland Group—whose former CEO Karl Eychmüller was a Nazi party member—plus components from U.S. firms International Ordnance Technologies and Elbit Systems, destined for Elbit’s Ramat Hasharon plant in Israel. Read the full article here.

• Ellison’s pro-Israel agenda: Billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a major patron of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is set to play a lead role in reshaping TikTok in the United States—while his son, David Ellison, installs Free Press founder Bari Weiss as the head of CBS News, reporting directly to him. Newly revealed emails show Ellison vetted Rubio’s loyalty to Israel as early as 2015, according to a new Drop Site investigation by Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain. Today, Rubio is central to both Trump’s Gaza plan and the TikTok negotiations, while Ellison and his son move to consolidate vast power across media, technology, and politics. Read the full report here.

• “Death is Better Than This Life”: Israel attacked tent encampments and Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah on Wednesday as an increasing number of Palestinians arrive to the area after fleeing Israel’s intensifying ethnic cleansing campaign in the north. Read journalist Abdel Qader Sabbah’s latest on-the-ground report for Drop Site here.

• Drop Site’s Ryan Grim spoke with Guy Christensen on Breaking Points about TikTok’s new content rules. Under guidelines led by former Israeli Defense Forces instructor Erica Mandel, creators must now explicitly condemn groups like Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad—both designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department—whenever they are mentioned, or risk having their videos flagged. Watch the short video here.

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