PhilipTheBucket

By Nomada, September 9, 2025

The District Prosecutor’s Office in Kielce has confirmed the launch of an investigation into possible aiding and abetting, as well as approval, of genocide and crimes against humanity by representatives of Israeli arms companies present at the MSPO arms fair. The case was initiated by a complaint filed on September 3 with the involvement of the Polish-Palestinian initiative KAKTUS; proceedings are being conducted in rem (under Articles 118 and 118a of the Polish Penal Code). So far, two individuals have been questioned, and part of the Israeli delegations left the fair before its conclusion. We call for a thorough and transparent investigation and for an end to cooperation with entities profiting from violations of international law.

Amid growing pressure for the Trump administration to release the full Jeffrey Epstein files, a New York Times investigation reveals how the country’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, enabled Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation and profited from its ties to him. The exposé is based on more than 13,000 pages of legal and financial records. The Times reports JPMorgan processed more than 4,700 transactions for Epstein totaling more than $1.1 billion, including payments to some of the women who were sexually trafficked. The bank “arranged for Epstein to be able to pay those victims, both in the U.S. and in Eastern European countries and in Russia,” says David Enrich, deputy investigations editor for The New York Times. Epstein “operated in large part because he had unfettered access to the global financial system. And for many years, it was JPMorgan that was providing him with that access.”

Four masked men in police tactical vests surround a young scooter rider, cuffing his hands behind his back. One person, whose face is fully obscured with a cap, sunglasses and a balaclava, is heard on eyewitness video telling the scooter rider: “You came into this country as a J1, as an exchange student. You didn’t show up … You lied, ok?”

“Yeah, he’s illegal, either way,” another person is heard saying, before they lead him to an unmarked car.

Screengrab from a video showing a man being arrested by federal agents along Florida Avenue Northwest, Washington DC on Tuesday, Sept. 2. Source: Instagram/@will.allendupraw

Nearby, two Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) cars are seen blocking part of the lane. Uniformed MPD officers stand around the area, neither intervening nor appearing to participate directly in the arrest.

MPD vehicles seen blocking part of a lane where federal officers are arresting a man on a scooter along Florida Avenue Northwest, Washington DC on Tuesday, Sept. 2. Source: Instagram/@will.allendupraw

The video was posted by Will Allen-DuPraw, whose profile says that he is a photographer and videographer based in DC, on Sept. 2. Allen-DuPraw wrote in the post that bystanders reported that authorities were stopping Latino men on scooters along Florida Avenue Northwest, a major road in Washington DC, and had arrested two.

An urgent alert sent out on the morning of the same day by Stop ICE Alerts, a community-driven alert network for those affected by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, reported similar information. The alert said that ICE, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) – a branch of ICE focused on investigating transnational crime – and MPD were “stopping Latinos on scooters” and had arrested one or two people along Florida Avenue Northwest.

A Metropolitan Police officer directs traffic at a checkpoint on New York Avenue after US President Donald Trump deployed US National Guard troops to Washington and ordered an increase in the presence of federal law enforcement to assist in crime prevention, in Washington, DC. Source: Reuters/Al Drago

With US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration, scenes of federal agents detaining people while accusing them of immigration offences have been cropping up all over social media from around the country. An analysis of ICE arrest data by DC-based think tank Cato Institute found that in June and July alone, ICE conducted almost 9,000 street arrests nationwide of immigrants who had no criminal convictions, charges, or removal orders. About 90 percent of these were immigrants from Latin America.

The incident on Florida Avenue Northwest was one of 42 that Bellingcat and our partner Evident Media geolocated and verified using videos and photos from social media and news reports. These showed federal agent encounters in the capital, in the month or so since Trump’s federal takeover of DC on August 11. The full dataset can be downloaded here.

In the three weeks after DC was placed under federal control, Trump’s administration said more than 300 people without legal immigration status were arrested in the District.

Like previous immigration raids that we documented in Los Angeles, the federal agents involved in the DC cases were often masked and in military wear. Some wore generic “Police” vests, while others had attire indicating specific government entities such as ICE and HSI. The vehicles they used were usually unmarked, with plates from a variety of US states.

Car plates from a variety of US states that federal agents in DC were filmed using in Washington DC. Source: Evident Media

There is one key difference, however. In LA, a state law prohibits local law enforcement from using its resources for immigration enforcement in most cases. But in DC, where no such law applies, MPD has frequently been seen working with federal officers since the federal takeover last month.

In half of the incidents in our dataset, local DC law enforcement could be seen working alongside federal agents. Most of the DC local police were from MPD, though some were from the Metro Transit Police Department. Aside from ICE and HSI, agents from federal agencies including the US Park Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were also seen in the videos.

Agents from US Park Police, FBI, DEA and ATF were seen in the videos. Source: Evident Media

“We are definitely seeing MPD cooperate at a level we’ve never seen before, and it is resulting in people getting arrested and sent to detention,” Michael Lukens, who runs immigrant rights centre Amica, told Evident Media.

MPD has not replied to Evident Media’s queries about their cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies as of publication.

Of the cases we analysed, 22 involved the arrest of delivery drivers or tradespeople, such as workers in an air conditioning and heating truck.

In two widely shared videos, DC resident Tyler DeSue claimed agents pulled over his Uber Eats driver for having “incorrect tags” on his bike, then checked his registration and insurance and saw it was valid. DeSue said they then asked for his immigration status and detained him.

Police officers, one in an HSI vest, seen questioning a man in a video posted by Tyler DeSue on Aug. 17. Source: TikTok/@td13__

The videos DeSue posted did not show the initial encounter between the agents and the driver, but did show the arrest. DeSue can be heard in one video telling agents that the man they were questioning did not understand what they were saying, and they should use Google Translate. Another witness is heard calling the arrest “ridiculous” and questioning if the agents have “better things to do than to harass Uber Eats drivers”.

In a second video, also posted by DeSue, agents are seen wrapping the man in chains before putting him in an unmarked car.

A second video posted by DeSue on Aug. 17 show agents wrapping the man in chains before putting him into an unmarked car. Source: TikTok/@td13__

Another video posted by NPR reporter Chiara Eisner on Aug. 21 shows an agent in a “Police” tactical vest handcuffing a man in front of a truck, with US Park Police nearby. When Eisner asks what is happening, a Park Police officer says this is a traffic enforcement because the man was driving a commercial vehicle on park roads.

US Park Police stand by as a man is arrested by an agent in a “Police” tactical vest, after what they said was a traffic enforcement for driving a commercial vehicle on park roads. Source: TikTok/@chiaraeisner

Evident Media asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about videos of these two specific incidents, as well as whether federal agents were using race or language as factors in their stops and arrests. In response, a DHS spokesperson said:

“What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the US – NOT their skin colour, race or ethnicity. America’s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists – truly the worst of the worst from our communities.”

The spokesperson also claimed that the men detained in these two incidents were undocumented immigrants who entered the country illegally. They did not mention any other criminal record for the men or comment on why the men were stopped by local police in the first place.

Lukens told Evident Media that ICE agents had been seen in areas with larger immigrant populations, such as Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan, which he described as “high-level racial profiling”.

Constitutionally, the Fourth Amendment protects anyone in the US, regardless of immigration status, from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

“If you are an ICE officer and the only thing that you have to fall on or to fall back on in justifying arrest is a person’s racial makeup and what vehicle they are driving, then you have conducted an illegal stop and an illegal arrest,” Lukens said.

Melissa Zhu, Eoghan Macguire, Pooja Chaudhuri, Kolina Koltai, Vladimir Zaha, Fraser Crichton and Bonny Albo contributed research to this piece.

From Evident Media, Jennifer Smart, Kevin Clancy and Zach Toombs contributed to research and production for the video report.

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here and Mastodon here.

Philadelphia’s transit system plunged into crisis on August 24, when the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) slashed bus, trolley, subway, and Regional Rail service by 20%. SEPTA eliminated 32 bus routes, shortened 16 more, and reduced the frequency of other bus and train lines. The crisis occurred as a result of state lawmakers failing to close a USD 213 million budget gap. The funding standoff left the city’s 746,500 SEPTA riders stranded and pushed the nation’s sixth-largest transit agency toward what officials call a “death spiral” – which has deeply impacted the disproportionately Black and lower-income SEPTA ridership. Nearly three-quarters of Philadelphia transit riders don’t own a car; more than half are Black, and nearly half earn under USD 30,000 a year.

Cuts to public transit in Philadelphia have forced commuters to double their commute time, says longtime Philly-based organizer Talia Giles. In the process of interviewing Philly residents following SEPTA cuts, Giles said, “one of the people that we spoke to was a student, and she said that she’s lucky now if she makes it home within 45 minutes. But originally her commute was 20.”

But amid this crisis, as students and workers struggled to get to their destinations, a sports betting company stepped in to fill in the gaps to make sure that people could get to the first football game of the season on September 4. FanDuel, an online gambling company, pledged USD 80,000 to keep trains running on the Broad Street Line for the Philadelphia Eagles’ home opener. 

Transit across the country faces similar crisis

What led to this mass transit crisis? A huge boost in funds from the federal government to SEPTA during the pandemic has since been exhausted.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, aid was distributed by the US government to transit systems of major cities. Federal COVID relief funds provided to SEPTA amounted to about USD 1.5 billion, but this money was exhausted by June 2024. SEPTA never recovered its pre-pandemic ridership, and this, combined with the end of federal relief funds, contributed to the budget crisis that has raised new questions about the federal government’s role in supporting transit systems in major cities.

In Philadelphia, the lack of federal aid for SEPTA was exacerbated by the fact that unlike New York or Los Angeles, Philadelphia lacks a dedicated regional tax to fund transit.

Other transit systems which could face similar budget challenges with the end of federal COVID relief include the public transit in Chicago, Dallas, Portland, and San Francisco. For example, Chicago transit faces a USD 771 million budget deficit.

Service returns, but at a cost

On September 4, days after the service reductions went into place across Philadelphia, a Pennsylvania court ordered SEPTA to halt all planned service cuts, including eliminations of bus routes, Regional Rail lines, station closures, and curfews, and to immediately restore any services that had been reduced or eliminated. On Monday, September 8, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro approved SEPTA’s request to redirect up to USD 394 million in capital assistance funds initially earmarked for infrastructure, to maintain and restore daily operations. This funding shift is expected to stave off further cuts for approximately two years.

Despite the restored service, SEPTA plans to implement a 21.5% fare hike, from USD 2.50 to 2.90, effective September 14. Despite the cuts to service, Giles claims that “we’ve also seen increased police presence and then increased fines and arrests” for fare evasion.

Philadelphia is labeled as the “poorest big city” in the US, with the highest poverty rate of any of the nation’s 10 largest cities. The SEPTA cuts hit lower income riders the hardest, a disproportionate number of whom are Black in a city with a plurality of Black residents, making up almost 40% of the city’s population. In 2023, the Transit app conducted a survey which revealed that in Philadelphia, nearly three-quarters of transit riders lack access to a car. Over half are Black, and almost half live in households making under USD 30,000 a year.

“The SEPTA crisis is a clear example of how poor and working people are so often denied basic public services,” said Walter Smolarek, a longtime Philadelphia resident and editor of Liberation News. “Even though major corporations like Comcast and Vanguard Financial are headquartered in the Philadelphia area, the city still lacks the tax revenue to meet its residents’ needs. Philadelphia is also home to about half of Pennsylvania’s Black population, and right-wing politicians from majority white areas routinely refuse to provide the city its fair share of state funding.”

In response to SEPTA’s restoration of transit services, some riders are reacting with indignation to the upcoming fare hikes. “It’s a racket, it’s a money grab. They already knew they had the money, they had the funding. They just want people to possibly suffer who can’t afford it as is at 2.50 dollars. It wasn’t that long ago we went up to 2.50 dollars and now 2.90 dollars, it’s impossible,” said Goldie Chavous, a SEPTA rider, told FOX 29.

The post Philadelphia public transit “death spiral” is a warning for other underfunded cities across the US appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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Israeli airstrikes target the the Al-Rouya residential tower in Gaza City on September 7, 2025. (Screen shot of video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.)

GAZA CITY—The Israeli military is waging an all-out, aerial assault concentrated on Gaza City, targeting dozens of high-rise towers in the heart of the city and reducing them to rubble. The destruction of residential buildings and tent encampments nearby is part of its stated operation to ethnically cleanse the entire area of the nearly one million Palestinians sheltering there and force them south.

“I promised you a few days ago that we would destroy Gaza’s terror towers. This is exactly what we are doing,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement from the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv on Monday. “In the past two days, 50 of these towers have fallen. The air force brought them down. Now all of this is just an introduction, just a prelude, to the main intense operation—a ground maneuver of our forces, who are now organizing and gathering in Gaza City,” he said, adding, “And so I say to the residents of Gaza, I am taking advantage of this opportunity, and listen to me carefully: You have been warned. Get out of there!”

On Sunday, Israeli airstrikes destroyed the Al-Rouya residential tower in Tel al-Hawa, a neighborhood in southwest Gaza City. The massive blast toppled the high-rise building, sending massive plumes of smoke and ash into the air. Residents say they were barely given any warning to flee the area before the strike.

Israeli airstrikes destroy the Al-Rouya building in Gaza City on September 7, 2025. Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.

“They threatened to target the tower about an hour ago, and then told us to evacuate. We didn’t have time to take anything,” Hayam Saad, who was living with her husband, children and other relatives in a tent encampment next to the Al-Rouya building, said as she she stood in the rubble alongside destroyed tents and shredded belongings. “I left my things as they were and ran away, with small children in tow.” Saad and her family were displaced from the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiyya three months ago after an Israeli airstrike on their apartment that killed Saad’s daughter-in-law. “There was blood everywhere in the apartment. We couldn’t find a leg, a head, or anything. We then left the area,” she said.

“There’s nothing, as you can see. Where are we supposed to go now? Who’s going to give us tents? Who’s going to house us? We don’t know where to go,” she said. Her husband, Ahed Al-Abed Saad, said they lost their meager belongings in the attack. “We’ve come here and found nothing. No clothes, no food, no water, not even tents,” he told Drop Site. “All of this is to force people to scatter to the south. Right now, we have nothing, we’re going to sleep on the rubble.”

Ahed Al-Abed Saad standing near his tent by the rubble of the Al-Rouya building in Gaza City. September 7, 2025. (Screenshot of video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.)

Hundreds of other displaced families were sifting through the debris to try and salvage what little they could. “They didn’t give us enough time to remove the necessary items from the tents for the displaced or from inside the tower itself for some of the displaced people,” Mahmoud Naim, a 33-year-old from Beit Hanoun, told Drop Site as he stood amid the rubble of the Al-Rouya building on Sunday. “The tower was bombed in less than an hour, and the area was completely destroyed. The tents of the displaced were also destroyed. These tents housed hundreds of displaced people from various areas—from the north, from central Gaza, from Gaza City, from Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, Jabalia refugee camp, Shujaiyya, Al-Tuffah, Al-Sabra, and all areas of Gaza.”

Israeli leaders have openly bragged about destroying Gaza City as part of a campaign to force out all of the Palestinians living there, as they have in other cities like Beit Hanoun, Rafah, and elsewhere.

The Israeli military first announced the intentional targeting of multiple high rises as part of its assault on Gaza City on Friday, claiming without offering any evidence that they were being used by Hamas fighters. The Israeli military only circulated a video showing the Mushtaha Tower, a 16-story building in a densely crowded western area of the city, with a graphic rendering of a supposed camera on the top of the building as “proof.” In the following days, they destroyed at least 50 buildings.

On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X: “A mighty hurricane will hit the skies of Gaza City today, and the roofs of the terror towers will shake. This is a final warning to the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza and in the luxury hotels abroad: Release the hostages and lay down your weapons - or Gaza will be destroyed, and you will be annihilated.”

The Israeli targeting of the Mushtaha Tower on Friday also destroyed a mass tent encampment next to the building, where hundreds of displaced Palestinians had fled from neighborhoods in the northern and eastern parts of the city as the Israeli military invaded.

Um Samir al-Ajlouni, who was displaced from the Zaytoun neighborhood, was sitting in front of her tent near the Mushtaha Tower on Friday when everyone around began shouting that the Israelis were about to bomb the building. Less than half an hour later, the massive structure was reduced to rubble. “When I returned to my tent, I found nothing. The tent was leveled to the ground, and our family’s belongings were scattered and lost. Even the bread I was preparing for my children, I couldn’t find,” al-Ajlouni told Drop Site. She said she thought of trying to go south in a desperate attempt to seek shelter but she couldn’t afford it. “I don’t have any money to pay for transport, and my tent was completely destroyed, so I no longer have any shelter,” she said. “We will have to walk on foot for a long distance… we have no other option. The tent we used to live in cost 200 shekels ($60), and today its price has risen to 4,000 shekels ($1,200), an amount most families cannot afford.”

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A girl sits among the wreckage of her family’s tent after Israeli airstrikes destroyed the nearby al-Rouya building in Gaza City. September 7, 2025. (Screenshot of video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.)

Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal confirmed the offensive on Gaza City that began last month is the most violent attack on the city since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18 and resumed its genocidal scorched earth campaign.

“Over the past two days alone, at least 50 residential buildings have been completely destroyed and 100 others were partially damaged that were housing thousands of displaced people,” Bassal told Drop Site. “The strikes also targeted mosques and playgrounds and led to the destruction of more than 200 tents belonging to displaced people living near the targeted buildings.” Bassal added that Civil Defense teams are trying to respond to multiple distress calls reporting people trapped under the rubble. “In not all cases do residents have a chance to escape. Most of the strikes that targeted buildings were carried out without evacuation warnings, causing the martyrdom of the residents.”

Among dozens of Palestinians killed on Monday was Osama Balousha, a photojournalist who was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhoods of Gaza City, bringing the number of journalists killed to nearly 250, according to Gaza’s government media office.

In addition to housing hundreds of families, many of Gaza’s high-rise buildings were home to businesses and recreational centers. “This tower is not just a building, as you can see, it’s not just floors stacked on top of each other. These are memories. The tower is the days we have lived. I used to train and spend my days at the gym here,” Maher Haboush, a fitness coach who used to train at Oxygen Club, a well-known gym inside the Al-Rouya building, told Drop Site as he stood amid the rubble on Sunday. “There are no friends left, no money left, and nothing to remember. Even the memories, they are taking them away from us.”

Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report.

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