Drop Site Daily: September 17, 2025
Israeli attacks across Gaza today kill at least 51 Palestinians, including 38 in Gaza City amid an intensifying air and ground assault. The confirmed death toll in Gaza rises above 65,000. The Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Commission reports that the internet has gone down in northern Gaza as crews work to repair the connection. A new evacuation corridor in Gaza City along the main north-south highway opens, with only a 48-hour window and for only the next two days. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to justify his attack on Doha, arguing that Qatar “harbors Hamas.” Republican members of congress push the Treasury Department to investigate left-wing organizations, particularly those attached to a single funder, as the administration grows more brazen in the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder. Democratic PR firm SKDK terminates its contract with the Israeli government a day after reports emerged about its contracted promotional work. Syria is presented with a plan by the Israeli government to demilitarize its border regions. The UN accuses he South Sudanese government of corruption, and Ecuadorians resist Canadian mineral extraction operations that endanger their environment.
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Watch yesterday’s ⚡️Drop Site Recap | September 16, 2025
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Next step: sustain the fund to support journalists and their families through the ongoing crisis.
The Genocide in Gaza
- At least 51 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza today, including 38 in Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera.
- Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports at least 98 Palestinians killed and 385 injured in the past 24 hours. Seven Palestinians were killed and 87 injured while seeking aid. The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 is now 65,062 killed, with 165,697 injured.
- Four more deaths were recorded over the past 24 hours due to starvation and malnutrition, bringing the total since the start of the war to 432, including 146 children.
- Over the past two days, the Israeli air force and artillery units have struck Gaza City over 150 times, the Israeli military said in a statement. Multiple strikes hit Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital on Tuesday night, the only pediatric hospital in Gaza still functioning, according to the health ministry in Gaza. The hospital’s upper floors were targeted three times, several minutes apart, the ministry said. The hospital had 80 patients receiving treatment, in addition to four pediatric intensive care units and eight neonatal intensive care units. As a result of the bombing, 40 patients left the hospital, while 40 more patients and their companions remain, along with 30 hospital staff. Read Drop Site’s report from inside Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital by Abdel Qader Sabbah earlier this month.
- The Gaza health ministry is accusing the Israeli military of deliberately thwarting attempts by the World Health Organization (WHO) to bring fuel into hospitals in Gaza. The ministry said Israeli forces have been preventing WHO teams from using alternative routes to deliver fuel to hospitals in Gaza City and other northern areas. “Preventing the supply of fuel needed to operate generators in Gaza’s hospitals means a complete halt to health services,” the ministry said in a statement. “The shutdown of the central oxygen station and ambulances in Gaza Governorate means we are facing a serious health and humanitarian disaster.”
- The Israeli military announced it will open a new evacuation corridor for Gaza City residents to flee south, according to an online post by an Israeli military Arabic language spokesperson. The route runs along Salah al-Din Street—Gaza’s main north-south artery—and through Wadi Gaza, and will only be accessible for a 48-hour window from Wednesday, Sept. 17 at noon until Friday, Sept. 19 at noon.
- Internet and telephone services have been disrupted due to Israeli attacks on the main network lines in northern Gaza, according to the Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.
- Gaza officials dispute Israel’s claim that 350,000 have fled Gaza City and the north, saying about 190,000 were displaced south — 15,000 of whom have since returned due to the lack of basic necessities. They report that the Mawasi “safe zone” in the south holds 800,000 people under repeated airstrikes with no hospitals or clean water. They accuse Israel, the U.S., and allies of forcing 1.7 million people into 12% of the territory, calling it a plan to empty Gaza City and the north, and demand urgent UN action to protect civilians.
- The Israeli military reportedly detonated several explosive-laden, remote-controlled armored personnel carriers in Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa and Rimal neighborhoods this morning. Decommissioned M113 APCs have been repurposed with explosives and remote controls in attacks like this one. Euro-Med’s Ramy Abdu added that Israel had begun large scale robot controlled explosions in Gaza’s most upscale neighborhoods early this morning
- Chris Sidoti, UN Commissioner, criticized Israel’s response to the commission’s report on Gaza, saying, “Israeli responses are becoming so boring. They say the same thing every time. They’re producing the responses by ChatGPT these days. They spend so much money in the foreign ministry on propaganda, you’d think they’d come up with something original. They never engage with the evidence.”
- A coalition of leading aid groups on Wednesday called on the international community to take stronger measures to stop Israel’s offensive on Gaza City. “What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the U.N. Commission of Inquiry has now concluded is a genocide,” the aid groups said in a joint statement. “States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action.” The signatories include over 20 aid organizations operating in Gaza, including Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Anera.
- Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill discusses recent Gaza footage showing “child after child after child” being pulled from the rubble, describing Israel’s killing as deliberate rather than random. He invokes a doctrine identified by Noam Chomsky decades ago, where an aggressor seeks to prove it “doesn’t actually have any limits.” Scahill called the strategy a “sick, macabre form of deterrence” aimed not at armed factions, but “against the existence of a people.”
West Bank
- Israeli authorities demolished 40 homes in the village of al-Sir in the Negev desert region, according to the Wafa news agency. Israeli forces repeatedly fired sound and smoke bombs at protesting residents and uprooted trees in the area.
- Israeli forces stormed the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday and arrested seven Palestinians.
- Israeli forces killed two Palestinians, Waseem Abu Ali and Khaled Hassan, and arrested at least 40 others across the West Bank in raids Tuesday according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society. Most of those arrested were released after field interrogations. On Tuesday, Israeli forces stormed Ramallah, bringing captive Hanaa Bedek with them to raid her apartment. Bedek has been held since Sept. 7; her husband Bashar was arrested during the raid but released shortly after.
Israel’s Attack on Qatar and Ceasefire Negotiations
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday defended last week’s strike on Hamas officials in Doha as “entirely justified,” accusing Qatar of sheltering and financing the group. “Qatar is connected to Hamas, it harbors Hamas, it funds Hamas. It has strong levers (that it could pull), but it chose not to,” Netanyahu said at a press conference. The unprecedented attack marked Israel’s first strike inside Qatar.
- On Drop Site’s livestream, Jeremy Scahill said the U.S. “either greenlit or permitted Israel to bomb Qatar, a country that houses US Central Command and supposedly falls under a U.S. security umbrella.” He called the official account a “nonsense cover story” about Trump donor Steve Witkoff attempting to warn Qatar too late. He added that no Arab or Muslim country will stop Israel from “torching the Middle East and even bombing Qatar.”
- On the same livestream, Drop Site Middle East editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous says Gulf leaders are in panic after Israel’s strike on Doha, realizing that even decades of “sycophantic support” for Washington and normalization with Israel offer no protection. Comparing Israel to a “serial killer in the neighborhood,” he said their complicity in Gaza’s siege has yielded only humiliation as Palestinians face what he calls the “ultimate ethnic cleansing plan.”
U.S. News
- House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer and Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to review U.S. businessman and activist Neville Roy Singham and the networks he funds, alleging he acts as a “CCP agent” supporting U.S. left-wing groups. The letter claims nearly $1.8M has gone to organizations including Code Pink, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and BreakThrough Media, which they accuse of spreading disinformation and promoting pro-CCP narratives. The committee is seeking potential asset freezes, FARA enforcement, and criminal penalties, framing these groups as threats to U.S. national security.
- Top Democratic PR firm SKDK has ended its $600K contract with Israel’s Foreign Ministry. The firm had produced media promoting Israel’s messaging on Gaza and amplifying pro-Israel voices on news shows. The firm said it concluded the work on August 31 and is deregistering from FARA, following a report from Sludge that allege a bot-amplification program tied to the contract. SKDK denied this, insisting its role was “solely media relations.”
- When asked about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s threat to go after hate speech, President Donald Trump told an ABC reporter: “We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they’ll have to go after you.”
- U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Hamas has only “days, maybe a few weeks” to accept a ceasefire deal, as Israel carried out its heaviest bombardment of Gaza City in the past month. Speaking before leaving Israel for Qatar, Rubio said: “We don’t have months anymore … we probably have days and maybe a few weeks to go,” underscoring pressure on talks over a ceasefire and captive release.
- According to The Lever, the $893 billion defense bill that passed the House could allow the Pentagon to outsource U.S. border operations to private military contractors for the first time, covering surveillance, transport, and intelligence work. This would benefit firms like Palantir, Anduril, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, critics warn, while reducing transparency and accountability. The amendment was pushed by Texas Rep. Pat Fallon.
- The U.S. and China have agreed on a framework to keep TikTok running under new ownership, with Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz set to acquire 80 percent of TikTok’s U.S. operations and establish a U.S.-only version of the app. Under the deal, all American user data will be stored on Oracle’s servers in Texas, and Washington will hold board-level oversight of the company. ByteDance will retain a small minority stake and license its recommendation algorithm, though it is still unclear whether the U.S. will attempt to rebuild a separate version or continue using the licensed Chinese system. The forced-divestment deadline has been extended to December 16 as final terms are negotiated.
- Democrat Xp Lee won a special election Tuesday to fill the seat of Melissa Hortman, the former Minnesota House speaker who was assassinated at her home in June along with her husband. The vote restores a 67-67 tie and preserves a power-sharing agreement between Democrats and Republicans.
- Five U.S. families traveled to Washington this week to demand accountability for loved ones killed or detained by Israeli forces and settlers. At a Capitol Hill press conference, Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib urged investigations into the deaths of Sayfollah Musallet, Ayşenur Eygi, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, and Rachel Corrie, and called for the release of 16-year-old Mohammed Ibrahim, a Palestinian-American imprisoned in Israel since February. The delegation met with members of Congress, warning that U.S. support for Israel enables continued violence against Americans and Palestinians alike. Drop Site contributor Jasper Nathaniel covered the event on the ground.
- The House approved two D.C. crime bills on Tuesday: one that would lower the age at which children accused of certain violent crimes can be charged as adults from 16 to 14; and another that would require judges to adhere to mandatory minimums for youth offenders.
International News
- Israeli warplanes carried out 12 airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port, damaging several ports, Yemeni media reported. The Ansar Allah spokesperson said Houthi air defenses engaged Israeli aircraft and forced some to leave Yemeni airspace. Earlier, the Israeli military had alleged Yemen was using the port to receive weapons from Iran, and issued a threat to evacuate the area. The attack comes less than a week after Israel’s Sept. 10 strike on Sanaa that killed 31 journalists—the deadliest attack on journalists in living memory—as discussed on the Drop Site livestream.
- Israel has presented Syria with a detailed plan for a new security agreement that includes demilitarized zones from southwest Damascus to the Israeli border, a no-fly zone, and limits on heavy weapons near the frontier, Axios reports. In exchange, Israel would gradually withdraw from occupied Syrian territory while retaining its Mt. Hermon outpost and an aerial corridor toward Iran. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has yet to respond, as trilateral talks with Israel and the U.S. continue in London ahead of potential UN General Assembly discussions. In separate talks, Jordan and Syria agreed to a U.S.-brokered plan to reestablish security in southern Syria, which was rocked by violence between members of the Syrian Druze community and local Bedouin tribes earlier this year.
- The European Commission on Wednesday proposed suspending some of the free-trade arrangements on Israeli goods due to the war on Gaza. In a statement, the EU said the proposal came as a result of Israel’s “blockade of humanitarian aid, the intensifying of military operations, and the decision of the Israeli authorities to advance the settlement plan in the so-called E1 area of the West Bank.” If passed, tariffs will be put on 37% of the €15.9 billion of Israeli goods imported to the EU, amounting to about €230 million ($166 million). The EU, Israel’s largest trading partner, currently levies no tariffs on that set of Israeli goods due to an EU-Israel Association Agreement. The commission also proposed sanctions on Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli settlers, and 10 Hamas leaders. The proposed suspension must be ratified by member states who are deeply divided on the issue.
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wept at the opening of a synagogue in Munich, vowing to “declare war on all forms of antisemitism.” Germany is Israel’s second-biggest arms supplier, after the U.S.
- Japan will not recognize a Palestinian state “for the time being,” with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba skipping UN meetings to focus on talks with U.S., European, and Asian partners, according to the Asahi Shimbun. The U.S. has reportedly urged Tokyo against recognition, warning it could worsen the situation and affect bilateral relations. Japan continues to support a two-state solution in principle, pending direct Israel-Palestine negotiations.
- China’s coast guard accused a Philippine ship of ramming one of its vessels near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, while Manila said Chinese forces injured a crew member by blasting its ship with water cannons. China claimed over 10 Philippine ships entered the area days after it declared part of the shoal a nature reserve. The Philippines filed a diplomatic protest, as clashes over the South China Sea continue amid competing territorial claims.
- UN investigators accuse South Sudan’s leaders of systematically looting billions in public funds while the majority of the country faces a deepening food crisis. The report highlights schemes diverting oil revenues and government programs to politically connected elites, with $1.7 billion from the oil-for-roads initiative unaccounted for and most roads incomplete. Officials say corruption is crippling the state’s ability to provide basic services.
- The U.S. military is increasing its presence in the Caribbean amid tensions with the Venezuelan government and a series of U.S. drone strikes against small ships in the region. According to open-source imagery, MQ-9 Reaper drones suitable for carrying out further attacks have been stationed in Puerto Rico in recent days, alongside a larger deployment of F-35 fighter jets and U.S. navy warships already stationed near Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro on Monday denounced the U.S. for planning “aggression” against his country, while stating that communications between the two states had ceased.
- Tens of thousands protested in Ecuador’s Azuay province against Canada’s Dundee Precious Metals’ Loma Larga gold mine, citing threats to the 3,200-hectare Quimsacocha water reserve and surrounding highland paramos. The government had granted an environmental license, but construction was suspended pending an environmental management plan, and local authorities and communities strongly opposed the project. Cuenca’s mayor and residents demanded the license be revoked, while President Daniel Noboa deferred responsibility to local authorities amid ongoing legal and environmental concerns.
More from Drop Site
From our most recent livestream:
- On the most recent American attack on a Venezuelan vessel: Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim criticize Trump’s strike on a second Venezuelan vessel, which killed at least three people in international waters. Grim calls it “a gross violation of maritime law,” while Scahill frames it as part of a longstanding U.S. “assassination complex” normalized under Obama and now expanded under Trump, who he says has embraced preemptive killing as official policy. Scahill warns the administration could even consider targeting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, describing the current Trump term as exposing “the ugliest components” of American history.
- On the attack on Yemeni journalists: Our editors give some dimension to Israel’s September 10 strike on Sanaa that killed 32 Yemeni journalists, described by Sharif Abdel Kouddous as “likely the deadliest attack on journalists in modern history.” Hundreds attended a mass funeral at Shaab Mosque, with families condemning the attack. @JeremyScahill noted the U.S. helped normalize targeting the press, citing the 2003 Al Jazeera Baghdad strike and continued bias against journalists covering Palestinian and Yemeni victims.
- ⛵Sumud Flotilla Update: The Barcelona and Tunisian convoy now numbers at 24 ships sailing in international waters through the Malta channel off the coast of Sicily. They are moving steadily to meet a confirmed group of 18 civilian ships from Italy. The flotilla anticipates stormy weather will force the ships to wait for safe passage.
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