At least 54 Palestinians were killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours, 23 of whom by Israeli strikes on Gaza City and at an aid site near Rafah. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approves roughly 3,400 settlements in the “E1” zone between East Jerusalem and Ma‘ale Adumim seeking to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advocates for an expansionist Greater Israel. Israel sends a deputy foreign minister to South Sudan a day after reports that Israel aims to send Palestinians from Gaza to the country. U.S. President Donald Trump rejects Mayor Muriel Bowser’s call for making D.C. a state, calling it “ridiculous.” Nigeria’s anti-insurgency campaign in its northeast is heralded by the Nigerian military. New Zealand’s co-chair of the Green Party was expelled from Parliament after introducing a bill to sanction Israel over war crimes in Gaza*. A new report from Drop Site’s Murtaza Hussain on the increasing ties between Israeli military intelligence and Silicon Valley.*
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The Genocide in Gaza
Over the past 24 hours, at least 54 Palestinians were confirmed killed, with four recovered from the rubble, while 831 injured arrived at hospitals in the Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. The toll includes 22 people seeking humanitarian aid. The Ministry has reported four people who died due to famine and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, raising the total death toll due to famine to 239, including 106 children.
The overall death toll recorded at hospitals has risen to 61,776 killed and 154,906 injuries since October 7, 2023.
On Wednesday, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, signed off on the “main concept” for a new Gaza campaign—an offensive to seize Gaza City already approved by Israel’s security cabinet. Zamir, who had previously warned that a full occupation could endanger hostages, overextend Israeli forces, and worsen the humanitarian disaster, approved the plan amid an escalating feud with Netanyahu over the broader course of the war.
Seven aid security staff were killed today when Israeli forces struck near the Al-Saftawi roundabout, just north of Gaza City. Throughout the genocide, Israel has repeatedly targeted police and volunteer guards, while attributing looting and aid-convoy breakdowns to Hamas.
Gaza’s Civil Defense told Wafa news agency that Israeli forces have razed over 300 homes in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood in the past three days, killing families without warning and blocking rescue teams from reaching survivors or retrieving bodies. The plan to encircle Gaza City—sending troops into residential areas before advancing into central refugee camps—would force up to a million residents further south.
Over 600 patients in Gaza have died while awaiting approval to travel abroad for urgent medical care, with more than 16,000 still stranded, Gaza Health Ministry official Zahir al-Wehadi said. Even before the current genocidal war, dozens—often cancer patients—died each year after Israel denied or delayed their exit permits.
According to a draft of the UN’s 2025 Report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence seen by the Times of Israel, UN chief António Guterres has placed Hamas on the report’s “blacklist” for the first time, while warning Israel could be added next year. Drop Site’s Ryan Grim called the move a full capitulation to a fabricated narrative used to justify genocide.
More than 100 nonprofit groups warned Thursday that Israel’s rules for aid groups working in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank will block much-needed relief and replace independent organizations with those that serve Israel’s political and military agenda. The nonprofit groups, including Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, and CARE, were responding to registration rules announced by Israel in March that require organizations to hand over full lists of their donors and Palestinian staff for vetting.
Four days before Israel killed him, Anas Al-Sharif was offered a chance to leave Gaza if he agreed to stop reporting. His brother says he refused, choosing to risk his life to continue covering the conflict.
On August 12, 2025, Palestinian residents were again forcibly displaced following attacks by the Israeli army on the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City (Photo by Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu via Getty Images).
“Greater Israel”
On Thursday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced a plan for new illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, with more than 3,000 homes slated for the contentious “E1” area. The settlements would connect Jerusalem and the existing illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, effectively dividing the occupied West Bank in two and preventing the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian territory that would extend from occupied East Jerusalem to major cities such as Bethlehem and Ramallah.
In a recent i24NEWS interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed the “Greater Israel” vision—a Biblical claim to land from the Nile to the Euphrates and encompassing present-day Israel, Gaza, all of occupied Palestine including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights, parts of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, northern Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, northwestern Saudi Arabia, southern Turkey, western Iraq, and northern Kuwait. Presented with an amulet of the “Promised Land,” Netanyahu declared himself on a “historic and spiritual mission.” The plan has been rejected by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the Arab League, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas.
“Resettlement” Plan
Following yesterday’s Associated Press report linking South Sudan to a possible Gaza ethnic cleansing plan, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel arrived in the country for the first official visit by an Israeli government representative, meeting President Salva Kiir and senior officials. In a new statement, South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry categorically denied that it would take part in ethnic cleansing: “These claims are baseless and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan.”
U.S. News
President Donald Trump on Wednesday rejected D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s renewed push for statehood, doubling down on his commandeering of the city’s police and deployment of National Guard troops. Calling statehood “ridiculous” and “unacceptable,” Trump contended that Democrats want it for two Senate seats, while Bowser and other local leaders say it’s needed after his temporary takeover of law enforcement.
U.S. Senator and darling of the Israel lobby Lindsey Graham warned that “God will pull the plug on us” if America stops supporting Israel amid what he called a livestreamed Holocaust. He added that members of Hamas are “radical Islamists” intent on killing everyone.
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City fired social worker Claire Raizen after she refused to remove a small “Gaza Must Live” postcard from her desk, which was visible only to coworkers. Raizen said complying would violate her core ethical values, and colleagues criticized the firing for disrupting patient care and reflecting a double standard, as staff who displaypro-Israel symbols face no action. A petition protesting her dismissal has over 350 signatures.
On August 5, 2025, the Iowa City Council unanimously approved a resolution to boycott public investments in companies “complicit in the current and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” The measure is believed to be the first of its kind in a Republican-controlled state, marking a notable milestone for the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions movement.
After his surprise June primary win, NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has drawn the attention of Barack Obama’s inner circle, the New York Times reports. Obama called to congratulate him, while advisers David Axelrod and Patrick Gaspard met with Mamdani’s team, praising his “determined, upbeat idealism” and signaling growing mainstream acceptance of the progressive candidate, who could become NYC’s first Muslim mayor if elected.
International News
Israeli drones carried out two separate strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. One targeted a car traveling between Haris and Hadatha in Bint Jbeil district, killing one person, reportedly an expatriate civil engineer in his sixties visiting Lebanon from Africa. Earlier, another drone hit a moped in Zebqine (Sour district), seriously injuring the driver and wounding a second person.
Nigeria’s military reported killing 592 armed militia members in the Borno state over the past eight months. The air force conducted strikes against Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) insurgents.
New Zealand Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick was expelled from Parliament for a second day after introducing a bill sanctioning Israel over war crimes in Gaza, while refusing to apologize for urging government MPs to “grow a spine.” Speaker Gerry Brownlee imposed a week-long ban and formally censured her by docking her pay. Opposition MPs criticized the punishment as disproportionate and a double standard. Swarbrick chanted “Free Palestine” as she left.
The Union of European Football Associations displayed a banner calling for an end to the killing of children and civilians, though it called out neither Israel nor Hamas by name.
Palestine Deep Dive reports that over 80 students in Gaza are blocked from traveling to the UK as visa biometric facilities remain closed, with Britain refusing to waive the requirement. Watch Hala Hanina speak with Dr. Israa Saleh, a Chevening alumna and PhD awardee, and 20-year-old Malak AlSweirki, bound for Cambridge—both trapped in Gaza, starving, and under fire.
More from Drop Site
New from Drop Site: A database shows hundreds of former Israeli intelligence now work in Big Tech. A recent $25 billion acquisition further strengthens ties between the U.S. tech sector and Israeli military intelligence.
If you haven’t already, check out our livestream with Al Jazeera English’s Laila al-Arian, where she joins Drop Site editors Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous to discuss the assassination campaign against journalists in Palestine.
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