Israeli forces moved deeper into Gaza City on Wednesday, as Israeli leaders dismissed a statement from Hamas that the group was willing to release its remaining hostages in exchange for an end to Israel’s assault. This comes as Palestinian health officials report Israeli forces have killed at least 84 people and wounded 338 others over the past 24 hours. In Gaza City, Palestinians mourned their loved ones killed in Israeli airstrikes.

Sabreen al-Mabhuh: “He was martyred. He was hit by a strike inside his room. They killed him with his wife and children. They erased them all. No one is left for me. Yesterday he was with me. He told me, 'I have your back. I will not leave you. Whatever happens to you happens to me.' But, no, he’s gone and left me alone. To whom are you leaving me, my brother Mohammed? To whom are you leaving me?”

In Israel, far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday proposed annexing 82% of the occupied West Bank. The plan would effectively end prospects for a future Palestinian state. In response, the United Arab Emirates said any efforts to annex the West Bank would cross a red line that could unravel the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and some Arab nations.

The Washington Post is reporting that a postwar plan for Gaza circulating within the Trump administration would relocate the enclave’s 2 million residents. Gaza would essentially be turned into a trusteeship run by the U.S. for at least a decade, where Palestinians who own land will be offered a digital token in exchange for rights to redevelop their property. Palestinians could redeem the token to move outside of the strip or into an apartment in one of the new cities to be created under the plan. The proposal was reportedly developed by some of the same Israelis who created the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, with contributions from the Boston Consulting Group.

Scotland’s top official announced Wednesday his government has paused funding to weapons manufacturers that sell arms to Israel, as he ordered the Palestinian flag to be raised above Scottish government buildings. First Minister John Swinney made the announcement as members of the Scottish Parliament voted 65 to 24 to recognize the state of Palestine, urging the U.K. government to follow suit.

First Minister John Swinney: “In the face of genocide, there can be no business as usual. We will pause new awards of public money to arms companies whose products or services are provided to countries where there is plausible evidence of genocide being committed by that country. That will include Israel.”

On Capitol Hill, two U.S. military veterans were removed from a Senate hearing Wednesday after they accused committee members of complicity in genocide in Gaza. Former Army intelligence officer Josephine Guilbeau was led away in handcuffs, alongside retired Green Beret Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Aguilar. He worked as a security contractor for the militarized U.S.- and Israeli-backed so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation before blowing the whistle on the organization’s deadly attacks on Palestinian civilians seeking food.

Josephine Guilbeau: “We are being arrested right now for interrupting a foreign affairs hearing on nominations because the U.S. is complicit in genocide! They are complicit in the slaughter of babies!”

*Anthony Aguilar “When the United States Congress comes after veterans, they will come after you. Every American sitting at home right now needs to realize that you are paying for a genocide.”

Click here to see our interview with Anthony Aguilar.

Senior Democratic leaders are asking the Trump administration to reveal details about who exactly is funding the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Welch write,”The State Department should immediately cease funding GHF and transfer or restore funding to experienced aid organizations given the strong and growing evidence that GHF is failing to accomplish its humanitarian mission.” According to the United Nations, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have died near GHF sites since the group started operations in May.

Survivors of sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein gathered on Capitol Hill Wednesday to share their stories, as they called on Congress to release files and documents related to the serial sex offender. This is Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips.

Lisa Phillips: “Congress must choose: Will you continue to protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors? And also, I would like to announce here today, us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list. We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know.”

All 212 House Democrats are expected to vote in favor of a measure to compel the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, meaning six Republicans would need to join them to pass the resolution. So far, four Republicans have signed on. They are Kentucky Congressmember Thomas Massie, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Meanwhile, President Trump has turned up pressure on Republicans to let the story die. Trump was asked Wednesday about the demands of Epstein survivors.

President Donald Trump: “So, this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. You know, it reminds me a little of the Kennedy situation. We gave them everything, over and over again, more and more and more, and nobody’s ever satisfied. From what I understand, I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it’s really a Democrat hoax.”

After headlines, we’ll play more of Wednesday’s testimony from Jeffrey Epstein survivors, who are both Democrat and Republican, and we’ll be joined in Washington, D.C., by Congressmember Ro Khanna, who co-sponsored the House resolution to release the Epstein files with Republican Congressmember Massie.

President Trump is expected to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the $5 million verdict in a civil suit that found that he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll. Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said, “We do not believe that President Trump will be able to present any legal issues in the Carroll cases that merit review by the United States Supreme Court.” In 2023, Carroll testified that Trump had violently attacked her in a dressing room at a department store in the mid-1990s. She also won $83.3 million in a defamation case, after Trump called her a liar.

Florida plans to become the first state to end all vaccine mandates for children to attend school, including for preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis. On Wednesday, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said that the vaccine requirement is “wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.” The American Medical Association responded to Florida’s plan to end vaccine mandates, saying that it would “undermine decades of public health progress.” According to the World Health Organization, vaccines have saved the lives of 154 million people globally over the past half-century, many of them infants and children.

Meanwhile, California, Oregon and Washington have announced that they’re forming a new health alliance to provide unified vaccine recommendations after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. withdrew federal COVID vaccine recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children back in May.

More than 1,000 current and former workers at the Department of Health and Human Services sent a letter to Congress Wednesday demanding the resignation of RFK Jr. over his pseudoscientific claims and his attacks on public health. This comes just days after The New York Times published a joint op-ed by nine former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headlined “We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health.” They write, “This is a time to rally to protect the health of every American. Congress must exercise its oversight authority over Health and Human Services.”

A federal judge in Boston has ruled in favor of Harvard, saying the Trump administration violated the university’s free speech rights when canceling nearly $2.2 billion in research grants. In her ruling, Judge Allison Burroughs wrote, “A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that [the government] used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” Harvard was the only university to sue the Trump administration after it targeted the school’s research funding over claims of antisemitism. The Trump administration has also tried to prevent Harvard from enrolling foreign students and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status. The White House says it plans to appeal the decision.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is defending the Pentagon’s decision to strike a vessel in the Caribbean Sea, killing 11 people. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Rubio said, “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up — and it’ll happen again.” The White House has failed to provide any evidence backing its claims that the boat was carrying illegal drugs from Venezuela. Legal experts warn the strike may have violated international law and the U.S. Constitution, which grants Congress — rather than the president — the power to declare war.

In Italy, audience members at the Venice Film Festival rose for a record 22-minute standing ovation Wednesday after the premiere of “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” a docudrama about a Palestinian girl whose killing by Israeli forces in Gaza in January 2024 reverberated around the world. The film, by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, incorporates real audio recordings of phone calls from Hind as she was trapped under Israeli fire for hours, begging to be rescued from a car where her aunt, uncle and three cousins lay dead. Hind was ultimately killed, along with two Palestinian paramedics dispatched to rescue her. Ahead of the film’s premiere, actress Saja Kilani read a statement on behalf of the cast and crew.
bq. Saja Kilani: “On behalf of all of us actors and in the name of the entire team, we ask: Isn’t it enough? Enough of the mass killing, the starvation, the dehumanization, the destruction, the ongoing occupation. 'The Voice of Hind Rajab' does not need our defense. This film is not an opinion or a fantasy. It is anchored in truth. Hind’s story carries the weight of an entire people.”