Ceasefire in Gaza: Palestinians Begin to Return Home—to Rubble

A fragile but long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect at noon Friday—and, for now, it is holding.

Hamas has 72 hours from Friday to release the remaining hostages, including 20 believed to be alive and the bodies of 28 others who have died and can be located.

Thousands of Palestinians returning home are finding nothing but rubble, with more than 100 bodies uncovered in the past day. More than 67,000 Palestinians that we know of have been killed during Israel's vicious assault on the enclave which leading scholars say is a genocide.

Ultimately, the deal ultimately is returning Palestinians to the status quo.

"A senior Hamas official told Drop Site [News] that the group’s leadership understood that 'this proposal was not put forward to find an end to the war. It is either total surrender or continue the war. Take it or leave it.' They viewed it as 'catastrophic in the short and long term, for the resistance and for the whole Palestinian cause.' But on a strategic level, Hamas officials and other Palestinian leaders knew that formally rejecting Trump’s offer would be disastrous. The public narrative would almost certainly portray Hamas as rejecting peace even after a broad coalition of Muslim and Arab countries had endorsed it."

More on the latest developments below, but first this week's other top news:

• This week, federal judges blocked or paused Trump’s attempts to deploy National Guard troops into Chicago and Portland, citing a lack of evidence that either city is in danger. In Chicago, a judge halted the deployment for at least two weeks, noting murders are down nearly 30% even as Trump calls the city “out of control” and threatens to arrest Gov. JB Pritzker. And in Portland, an appeals panel temporarily stayed a lower-court order blocking troop deployment while it reviews the case. Continued below.
• Qatar will build a facility for its air force on a U.S. military base in Idaho, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday. The deal—years in the making, including during the Biden administration, according to Axios—has MAGA diehards furious. The base already hosts Singapore’s F-15s, and pilots from dozens of countries train on U.S. soil, but this agreement goes further than anything the U.S. has allowed before. Quid pro quo? Qatar is also home to a new $5.5 billion Trump golf resort.
• The Justice Department convinced a grand jury to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on mortgage fraud charges—even though previous prosecutors concluded there wasn’t a case. James is accused of misrepresenting the purpose of a second home purchase to secure a better mortgage rate, saving her about $19,000 over the life of the loan—roughly $633 a year. James famously secured a real estate fraud conviction against Donald Trump—a case that humiliated him and, many say, sparked his vendetta against her. “'Are you really going to believe the attorney general of New York would commit this over $600 a year?’ one lawyer said.”
• Poor Trump. Despite his shameless lobbying for a Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year’s honor to Venezuelan activist María Corina Machado for her fight against authoritarianism and defense of democracy. Machado is known for leading a resistance movement against Nicolás Maduro, under whom Venezuela has become a “brutal, authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis.”

As Israeli tanks and troops pull back, Palestinians returning to their neighborhoods are uncovering the devastation left behind: beneath the rubble of their homes, at least 116 bodies were found in the past day, according to Al Jazeera.

GHF aid distribution sites are being dismantled as operations shift back to humanitarian organizations, and Israel has agreed to allow at least 600 trucks of aid per day starting Sunday.

On Wednesday, Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first phase of a deal crafted by his administration, which Israel’s security cabinet approved the following night.

By Saturday, American troops began arriving in Israel as part of Trump’s plan to oversee adherence to the ceasefire and coordinate logistics and aid distribution. The White House says they will not enter Gaza.

Trump is expected to visit Israel on Monday to address the Knesset and meet with hostage families before heading to Egypt, where Axios reports he’ll meet with European and Arab leaders to discuss next steps. Netanyahu is not expected to attend.

Cautious optimism greeted the deal — but skepticism remains. Israel has a long history of violating ceasefire agreements, and both sides agreed only to the first phase of a broader plan. A similar deal collapsed earlier this year when Israel refused to engage in phase two and broke the ceasefire.

Trump has claimed he personally guaranteed Hamas that Israel will not break this truce nor annex the occupied West Bank and vowed that no Palestinians will be displaced.

Israel has also agreed to release thousands of Palestinians it has kidnapped and detained without charge since October 2023, including 22 children. But it says it will not release two prominent doctors — Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician who was abducted last year and tortured while being held incommunicado without access to family, medical care, or lawyers, and Dr. Marwan Al Hams, the director of field hospitals. Neither has been charged with a crime, and Israel has provided no public evidence to justify their detention.

RELATED

• A new investigation by a consortium of news organizations found that many Israeli army animations—including one that allegedly showed Hamas tunnels beneath al-Shifa Hospital—were built on make-believe. After reviewing 43 videos, investigators found serious inaccuracies that were not based on any actual intelligence. (+972 Magazine)
• At the same time, the pro-Israel lobby is mounting an aggressive push to reclaim the social-media narrative after two years of images of dead Palestinians turning global opinion against Israel. Starting in January, the Karsh Fellowship will bring together ten fellows to engage with “leading journalists, scholars, policymakers, and innovators,” with sessions on “Middle East Misinformation” and “How to Cover Antisemitism.” Mentors include reporters from The New York Times, The Atlantic, Spectrum, Times of Israel, and CNN’s Van Jones—who recently drew criticism for making light of dead Palestinian children. (Drop Site News)
• After acquiring CBS News, Paramount announced it paid $150 million to buy The Free Press and named its founder, Bari Weiss, as CBS’s new editor-in-chief. The move has raised alarm among CBS insiders and media critics, who note that Weiss—widely criticized for her pro-Israel bias and lack of television experience—has a track record of subpar journalism and no background leading a national newsroom. Oh, how the network of Walter Cronkite has fallen. (Zeteo)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH

• Former FBI director and Trump nemesis James Comey was arraigned on Wednesday for lying to Congress and obstructing a proceeding. He pleaded not guilty. His trial is set for January, and Comey’s lawyers say they’ll try to have the case dismissed. (New York Times)
  • Meanwhile, the Justice Department is bringing in outside prosecutors for the Comey case—reportedly because federal prosecutors don’t want to touch it, according to MSNBC. Lawyers risk contempt or even disbarment if they’re caught lying in court, so their reluctance isn’t surprising. (WSJ)
  • And, sources confirm to the Wall Street Journal that Trump’s September 20 Truth Social post to Attorney General Pam Bondi calling on her to pick up the pace on prosecuting his political enemies was meant to be private. Oops. Comey was indicted five days later. Prosecutors in Maryland are expected to charge John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser turned critic, with mishandling classified info. (Wall Street Journal)
  • Bondi testified before Congress this week, refusing to answer even basic questions—including ones about the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and the Comey indictment. At times, Bondi appeared distracted, shuffling papers as lawmakers pressed her, responding to some questions defiantly and claiming ignorance on others.
  • Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told Crooked Media that “there isn’t much Democrats can do right now to force Bondi to answer their questions.” For now, he said, their plan is to put questions on the record and use the Freedom of Information Act to uncover “any secrets being hidden.”
• MIT became the first university to respond to Trump’s “compact,” which threatens nine U.S. colleges with the loss of federal funding and benefits unless they agree to a list of demands. MIT said 🖕🏼 — but, like, nicely.
• The Labor Department warns that tightening the border and deporting immigrants will hurt U.S. farmers and drive up food prices. “Unless the Department acts immediately to provide a source of stable and lawful labor, this threat will grow,” the agency said. Roughly half of U.S. farmworkers are immigrants, many of them undocumented — and without them, experts say, crops will go unharvested and costs will spike across the food supply chain. (Washington Post)
• A Democrat-led civil rights watchdog agency has launched a sweeping investigation into how the federal government has responded to allegations of antisemitism on college campuses. The commission voted before Trump took office to pursue the inquiry, which will span both the Biden and Trump administrations. According to documents seen by Reuters, the commission has requested all communications between the schools and any federal agency “regarding antisemitic conduct or conduct based on shared ancestry under Title VI.” Public hearings are scheduled for November. (Reuters)
• Friday marked Wall Street’s worst day since April, with the Dow plunging more than 870 points and the S&P 500 falling 2.7% after Trump threatened China with 100% tariffs, accusing Beijing of becoming “hostile” toward the United States. In recent weeks, China has imposed new port fees on American ships, announced plans to tighten exports of rare minerals and elements, and halted purchases of U.S. soybeans. (Yahoo Finance)
• First Lady Melania Trump announced that she’s been working with Russian President Vladimir Putin to help return separated or abducted Ukrainian children to their families. Over the three years of war, an estimated 200,000 children have been taken from their homes. During Putin’s visit to the U.S. in August, it was reported that the first lady gave him a letter to open a dialogue about the partnership. The White House says several children have already been reunited with their families. (NBC News)
• There’s been plenty of speculation about why Trump is getting another physical just six months after his last one, with some suspecting he’s hiding something. But a former White House doctor told MSNBC it’s “much ado about nothing” — at 79, it’s not unusual for someone his age to have checkups this frequently. (PBS News)
• Trump and Vice President JD Vance ended their TikTok hiatus this week after the platform was sold to a group of MAGA-aligned, pro-Israel investors. (Politico)

CONGRESS

• As the government shutdown enters its second week, the Office of Management and Budget has fired a “substantial” number of federal employees — most of them from the Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). (CNN | AP)
• Republicans are threatening to withhold back pay from government employees to pressure Democrats into a deal. In 2019, Trump himself signed a law guaranteeing federal workers would receive back pay as soon as the government reopened after a shutdown. Now, Republicans claim that law applied only to that shutdown — not future ones. The move could affect roughly 750,000 furloughed workers. Legal experts say that interpretation is baseless: “There is no legal authority to support that interpretation of the statute,” said Nekeisha Campbell, a labor attorney with Alan Lescht & Associates. (Axios)
• Air traffic controllers are among the federal employees working without pay during the shutdown. The FAA says a dozen of its facilities were short-staffed, causing hours-long flight delays across the country. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy claimed that a “small fraction” of controllers were “lashing out” over the shutdown by refusing to report to work. (CNN)
• The Trump administration is tapping $300 million in tariff revenue to temporarily fund a critical nutrition program that supports as many as six million low-income mothers and children. The money will keep the program afloat for a few more weeks after Republicans earlier this year approved cuts to it in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. (AP)
• A similar stopgap haD been ruled out to cover military pay but Trump ordered lawmakers to figure it out. Service members will miss their next paycheck unless the government does something before Wednesday, October 15, their next scheduled biweekly payday. House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to bring a standalone bill to the floor to pay military personnel, instead sending lawmakers on an extended break until at least October 20. (Politico)
• The Senate voted 51–48 against even debating a plan to limit Trump’s power to launch military strikes. The vote came after the U.S. hit four boats in the Caribbean, killing 21 people in what Trump calls a “war” on drug cartels — without naming who was killed or seeking congressional approval. And, oh — only Congress can declare war. (Washington Post)
  • “These military actions should stop unless authorized,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who helped write the resolution. Lawmakers warn that deadly force is now replacing the usual protocol of stopping and searching vessels at sea.
  • Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who opposed the measure, raised concerns about precedent: “What if China employs a similar strategy in international waters?”
• On Monday, Republicans accused the Biden Justice Department of “tapping” their phones and “spying” on them in an operation they called “Arctic Frost.” In reality, no phones were tapped. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) office released a one-page FBI document showing that investigators had obtained cellphone records of nine senators as part of the probe into the January 6th Capitol insurrection — details the outraged lawmakers left out. Most of those senators had promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
  • By Tuesday, the Trump-led FBI fired the unit responsible for investigating public corruption. FBI Director Kash Patel claimed the team had “weaponized law enforcement against the American people.”
• Meanwhile, the Defense Department is investigating 300 employees over comments they may have made about assassinated political commentator Charlie Kirk. At least two employees have already been fired. Former defense officials and congressional Democrats say the order “reflects a deepening alarm over” Hegseth’s “stewardship of the military, whose personnel are expected to remain loyal to the Constitution, not any one party or president.” (Washington Post)
• Republicans blocked a Democratic bill that would have denied funding for Trump to retrofit a $400 million private jet gifted to him by Qatar. Bringing the plane up to presidential security standards would itself cost another $400 million. So much for Republicans’ “fraud, waste, and abuse” crusade. (Politico)
• Two Arizona lawmakers — Sen. Mark Kelly and Rep. Ruben Gallego — confronted House Speaker Mike Johnson this week, accusing him of “covering up for pedophiles” for refusing to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. Grijalva won a special election two weeks ago to fill the seat of her late father, former Rep. Raúl Grijalva, but only Johnson can swear her in — and he won’t. Democrats say Johnson is stalling because Grijalva has pledged that as soon as she’s sworn in, she’ll sign a House petition calling on Congress to release the Epstein files. The petition is currently one vote short of the number needed to force action. (Cronkite News)
• Agreeing with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene may not have been on your 2025 bingo card — but it’s been that kind of year. This week, Greene broke with Republican talking points and sided with Democrats on the threat of rising health-insurance premiums. She’s also recently split with her party on Gaza and the Epstein files. (Crooked Media)

• Republicans are labeling an upcoming “No Kings” rally in Washington, D.C., scheduled for next Saturday as a “hate” rally. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer called it a “terrorist-sympathizing” event meant to “appease the pro-Hamas, anti-American wing” of the Democratic Party. (The New Republic)

THE COURTS

Continued from above.

CHICAGO: The Trump administration is appealing a federal court ruling that halted its plan to send hundreds of National Guard troops from Texas and Illinois into Chicago. Officially, the troops were meant to guard ICE facilities and assist agents following a wave of mostly peaceful protests against the government’s immigration policies and Trump’s broader push to expand his power.

Trump went further, threatening to have Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker arrested for “failing to protect the city.” Pritzker called him “demented” and “unhinged.” U.S. District Judge April Perry sharply criticized the plan, writing that “to add militarized Texas troops without de-escalation training, and as the defendants have stated, utilize vigorous enforcement of the law is not in the community’s interest.”

PORTLAND: In a separate case, a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — which includes two Trump appointees — temporarily stayed a lower court order (from another Trump appointee) blocking Trump from sending National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, while they review the case further. Trump announced the deployment two weeks ago, calling Portland a “war-ravaged” city crawling with domestic terrorists.

The lower court judge had rejected that argument as “untethered to the facts,” but the appeals panel said a president does have the authority to deploy the Guard to protect federal property and that the case merits additional review.

WHAT NEXT? Together, these cases could shape how far a president’s power extends over states and cities that refuse to cooperate with federal actions. They test the limits of executive authority in domestic law enforcement — and whether federal troops can be used over the objections of local governments in situations where no imminent threat exists. Legal scholars say the rulings that emerge from Chicago and Portland could set precedents with lasting consequences for civil liberties and protest rights in the years ahead.

Trump’s next move could shape how those cases play out. To bolster his argument for deploying federal force into Democratic-led cities, he said he would consider designating “antifa” as a foreign terrorist organization — a label that would let the Treasury Department impose financial sanctions and allow the Justice Department to pursue enhanced “material support” charges. Framing antifa this way also helps Trump cast protests and even local governments themselves as threats, providing political cover to send troops into cities like Chicago and Portland under the guise of counterterrorism.

Trump has also floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act — which would give him some more latitude to deploy the military in US cities. It was used by George H. W. Bush during the 1991 Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict — but that was in agreement with the state’s governor, a key distinction that is not applicable here.

To that end, on Wednesday, Trump hosted a roundtable with MAGA influencers posing as journalists. Participants took turns recounting alleged incidents of violence against them by “antifa” while covering stories in the field.

MORE

• Good news: judges may be onto Trump. Courts traditionally grant wide latitude to the executive branch, but Trump’s vindictive, politically motivated agenda is testing those boundaries — and has many judges questioning whether the White House can be trusted. (Washington Post)
• The Supreme Court has rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal to overturn her conviction for child sex trafficking. Later, when asked if he’d consider pardoning Maxwell, Trump said he would “speak to the DOJ about it.” (NBC News)

• Actress Diane Keaton died on Saturday. She was 79.
• Former President Joe Biden will begin radiation therapy for prostate cancer.
• California authorities arrested a 29-year-old man for starting the Palisades Fire that killed at least a dozen people and burned thousands of acres to the ground.

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