Gary, Indiana still without power; U.S. to unveil “economic D-day” sanctions against Iran; Israel bombs mosque, desalination plant in Gaza

A makeshift road block prevents drivers from driving through downed utility lines stretching across a street on August 20, 2026 in Gary, Indiana. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images. Monday, August 24, 2026 – Israeli strikes kill six Palestinians on Monday. Palestinian man executed by Israel in Gaza, family says. Israeli forces kill Palestinian child, settler assaults elderly amputee as attacks continue across the West Bank. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz says Israeli military will act “forcefully” over kites from Gaza. Drop Site contributor Mohamed Awad to be detained without charge for months. Hamas tells U.S. envoy Jared Kushner that it will not abide by an unenforced deal. Hamas discusses electoral strategy. “Anti-Netanyahu” says there will be no Palestinian state if he controls government. U.S. to announce “economic D-Day” sanctions against Iran. Iran permits Iraqi tankers to pass through Hormuz. Qatari spending is dramatically reduced by war. U.S. officials claim that 40 tankers crossed Hormuz on Friday; data shows none. Iranian refinery approaching full repair, official says. Pakistan army chief set to visit Iran on Monday. Iran announces it will choke “shuttle” trade through Hormuz. Ansarallah targets Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea. Israeli forces kill two 17-year-old boys, demolish and burn homes across Southern Lebanon despite ceasefire. U.S. envoy walks back comments on Hezbollah role in negotiations. Thousands are still without power in northwest Indiana after deadly storms, sparking lawsuit. Father of USS Abraham Lincoln sailor detained by ICE while son deployed at sea. Canada “at war” over trade after U.S.-Canada talks collapse, oil supply squeeze looming for U.S. refiners. U.S. Postal Service moves forward with mail-in ballot restrictions. Trump made more than 1,000 stock trades in June, disclosure shows. Migrants who resisted deportation flight to Liberia forced onward to Equatorial Guinea. Federal judge strikes down Trump administration’s visa ban on 75 countries. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Jared Kushner. Israel strikes Syria near the Golan Heights. U.S. envoy suggests Israel bombed Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase to “bait” Turkey. Ukraine strikes Russian refinery, Russians strike Ukrainian mall. Sudanese Army strikes inside Chad. Venezuela unable to ship oil, Reuters reports. Embattled Mexican governor Rubén Rocha out again. Germany records over 14,000 heat-related deaths. DR Congo and M23 rebels agree on peace roadmap in Switzerland. Video shows hundreds held captive after mass abduction from Nigerian mosque. This is Drop Site Daily, our free news recap We send it Monday – Friday Subscribe Palestine Killed and wounded in Gaza: Over the past 24 hours, two Palestinians were killed and 32 were injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 has risen to 73,422 killed, with 174,401 injured. Since October 11, the first full day of the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 1,288 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 4,290, while 813 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble. Israeli strikes kill six Palestinians on Monday: At least six Palestinians, including a child, were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Monday, Al Jazeera reported. A Palestinian was killed and others wounded when Israeli forces struck a tent sheltering displaced people near Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, WAFA reported. Separately, another Palestinian died from wounds sustained in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza City port area last Tuesday which killed seven. Israeli forces targeted a mosque and a water desalination plant in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan district. Israel continues to kill in Gaza over the weekend despite “ceasefire” : An Israeli drone struck a home in the Al-Bassa area north of Deir al-Balah on Saturday, killing one Palestinian man and wounding another. Separately, a woman was shot by Israeli forces near Nuseirat. Israeli artillery shelled areas around Al-Bureij, Khan Younis, and eastern Gaza City on Saturday, including homes in Khan Younis’ Al-Amal neighborhood. On Sunday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian in Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. In a separate airstrike near Al-Zawayda, Israel killed a 4-year-old Palestinian, sources told Drop Site, wounding two others Palestinian in the same strike. Israeli tanks also fired toward displacement tents near Asdaa City and Hamad Towers, warships opened fire off Rafah, and artillery shelling was reported in northern Al-Bureij on Sunday. Palestinian man executed by Israel in Gaza, family says: The family of Ibrahim Mohammed Kawarea says Israeli forces executed the father of three after detaining him near the “Yellow Line” east of Khan Younis on Friday, according to Felesteen. Kawarea was suffering a severe mental health crisis. Relatives said his state of mind had worsened after his cousin had been killed days earlier. His uncle, Jaber Kawarea, said Ibrahim’s body arrived at Nasser Medical Complex with multiple gunshot wounds to his head, chest, and abdomen—some apparently fired at close range—and his legs were still bound. “We were shocked that his legs were also tied,” he said. The family described his killing as a “field execution” and is demanding an international investigation. Israeli forces kill Palestinian child, settler assaults elderly amputee as attacks continue across the West Bank: Nablus : Israeli forces shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian during a raid on New Askar refugee camp, east of Nablus, on Sunday. Israeli forces also continued their siege of three Palestinian homes in Qusra for the third consecutive week on Sunday, restricting movement and blocking aid and solidarity groups, while allowing settlers to move freely around the besieged homes. Israeli attackers withdrew on Sunday from one of these homes after occupying it for 10 days, but remained stationed outside the property. Hebron: An Israeli settler assaulted an elderly Palestinian amputee in Masafer Yatta on Saturday, while another videotaped it. After Saturday’s assault, Israeli forces raided his home, confiscating his family’s phones, per WAFA. Israel police announced on Sunday that two Israeli teenagers were arrested—the 16-year-old who clubbed the disabled Palestinian man and the 17-year-old who filmed the attack, according to the Times of Israel. The 17-year-old was later released to house arrest, the police said. Jordan Valley: An Israeli settler was stabbed Sunday morning near the Palestinian village of Al-Auja in the occupied Jordan Valley, according to The New Arab. The 24-year-old man was being treated for his injuries as Israeli forces searched the area for the attacker. Al-Auja has been subjected to so much sustained settler violence that residents were forced to abandon the village earlier this year. Katz says Israeli military will act “forcefully” over kites from Gaza: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the Israeli military on Sunday to “act immediately and forcefully” over kites launched from Gaza, declaring that Israel will treat every kite or balloon as an “act of war,” even those carrying no explosives. Four kites flown from Gaza landed in Kibbutz Nahal Oz over the weekend, according to the Times of Israel. The Israeli military said nothing suspicious was found on them and they posed no danger to the public. “A balloon is treated like a kite, and a kite is treated like a drone, with or without explosives,” Katz said, threatening those behind the launches with the “utmost severity.” Senior Hamas official Basem Naim responded on Sunday, writing that it was a “surreal paradox” that a “nuclear state that practices terrorism daily” would “issue orders to deal forcefully with paper kites coming out of Gaza.” Mohamed Awad to be detained without charge for months: Palestinian journalist and Drop Site contributor Mohamed Awad was ordered to be held in administrative detention for four months by Israeli military authorities, according to his lawyer. Awad was arrested from his home in the village of Beitunia, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, on August 12 by the Israeli military. Administrative detention is a mechanism by which Israeli authorities imprison Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial. Hamas tells Kushner that it will not abide by an unenforced deal: Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the group told Jared Kushner in their meeting last weekend that if Israel does not publicly accept the proposed framework and begin implementing its obligations, including halting attacks and withdrawing from Gaza, Hamas will not consider itself obligated to implement any part of the deal. Hamdan made the remarks on an Iraqi podcast released this week. Hamdan stressed that Hamas has not agreed to surrender its weapons. He said the framework calls for heavy weapons to be restricted and stored under the authority of a Palestinian administrative committee governing Gaza, while remaining in Palestinian hands. He also said that none of Hamas’s weapons would be transferred to any non-Palestinian party and not a single bullet would leave Gaza under the agreement. Hamas discusses electoral strategy: Hamas said in a statement that it would contest the upcoming Palestinian legislative elections as part of the “broadest possible national alliance” to build a more unified Palestinian political system. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree on July 9 setting legislative elections for November 28 in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. They would be the first Palestinian legislative elections since 2006. Hamas urged Abbas not to reverse course “as happened in previous stages.” “Anti-Netanyahu” says there will be no Palestinian state if he controls government: Gadi Eisenkot, the former Israeli military chief of staff now leading in polls to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu in the October 27 election, declared on Saturday there will be no Palestinian state under a government he forms. “There is no Palestinian state, and in the government we will form, no Palestinian state will arise,” he wrote on X. A recent New Yorker profile by editor David Remnick cast him as the “anti-Bibi” in “manner and character,” a humble soldier fighting for a “Jewish, democratic, progressive, and liberal state.” Iran U.S. to announce “economic D-Day” sanctions against Iran: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to announce new U.S. sanctions against Iran at a press conference on Monday afternoon. In an op-ed in the Financial Times, Bessent wrote: “At dawn begins an economic D-Day—the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary. Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.” He added that any country that “serves as a financial artery” for Iran “should expect to share in its isolation” and would become a “global pariah.” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei criticized the move as “a clear example of economic terrorism to punish a nation that insists on defending its sovereignty and independence.” He warned that Iran would respond harshly to expanded U.S. sanctions. “Any escalation of this situation will undoubtedly bring about consequences,” Baghaei said. “Our hands are not tied.” Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned other countries not to join the campaign against Iran, saying that “any country participating in the imposition of economic restrictions against us is considered an enemy.” Rezaei said Iran is prepared to target “all American oil and economic companies in the region” if Washington escalates to economic war, and that in a full economic war, Iran would let no oil leave the Persian Gulf “even through other means,” signaling potential strikes on bypasses. Iran permits Iraqi tankers to pass through Hormuz: Iran granted special permission for a number of Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz after repeated requests from Baghdad, IRNA reported. The issue was a key request during Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf’s visit to Iraq. The Iraqi President said Iran had already allowed the passage of vessels carrying Iraqi crude in recent days, according to Reuters. Iraq produced about 4 million barrels per day before the Iran war, and virtually all seaborne exports left from the southern Basra terminals in the Persian Gulf, meaning they had to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Qatari spending dramatically reduced by war: Qatar is slashing spending at home and abroad as the six-month U.S.-Israel war with Iran takes a severe toll on one of the world’s richest states, the Financial Times reported. Qatari government departments have had budgets reduced