Rabia Ali
08 October 2025•Update: 08 October 2025
ISTANBUL
Here is a rundown of all the news you need to start your Wednesday, including Israeli Navy attacking vessels of Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla Coalition in international waters, US President Donald Trump saying another team gone to Gaza for negotiations, and Israel killing 118 Palestinians in Gaza over past 4 days.
TOP STORIES
The Israeli Navy attacked three ships of the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) early Wednesday in international waters roughly 120 nautical miles (222 kilometers) from the enclave.
"We confirm that three vessels -- Gaza Sunbird, Alaa Al-Najjar and Anas Al Sharif -- have been attacked and illegally intercepted by the Israeli military at 04:34 a.m., 220 km off the coast of Gaza," the International Committee for Breaking the Siege on Gaza said.
"The video shows the moment of the attack on the Sunbird boat and the attempt to conceal the crime by striking the camera with a weapon," it added.
Israel’s Channel 13 said earlier that the Israeli army was preparing to attack the flotilla.
“At roughly 120nm away from Gaza, Israel has attacked our flotilla,” the coalition said later on the US social media company Instagram’s platform.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that another US team left to take part in negotiations on Gaza, voicing hope for a deal.
"We'll certainly be talking about Gaza. We're in very serious negotiations," Trump said in the Oval Office alongside Mark Carney, Canada’s visiting prime minister.
"I think there's a possibility that we could have peace in the Middle East. It's something even beyond the Gaza situation. We want a release of the hostages immediately, etc. And so our team is over there now, another team just left," Trump said.
Trump said every country in the world has supported his 20-point Gaza plan that includes the release of all Israeli captives in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a ceasefire, the disarmament of Hamas, and the rebuilding of Gaza.
The Israeli army killed 118 Palestinians over the past four days in air and artillery strikes across the Gaza Strip, defying a call by US President Donald Trump to halt the bombardments, the Gaza Government Media Office said Tuesday.
Israeli forces “continue their aggression against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, disregarding the ceasefire call announced by President Donald Trump and the positive response to his proposal,” the office said in a statement.
It said that between dawn on Saturday, Oct. 4 and the end of Tuesday, Oct. 7, Israel carried out more than 230 air and artillery strikes targeting densely populated civilian and displacement areas across Gaza’s governorates, committing “clear massacres.”
NEWS IN BRIEF
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Tuesday discussed bilateral relations as well as regional and global issues.
- Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin will visit Egypt on Wednesday to take part in Gaza ceasefire talks, Turkish security sources said.
- The European Parliament approved new legislation Tuesday, making it easier to suspend visa-free travel for nationals of third countries found to be violating human rights or failing to comply with international court rulings.
- Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra said Tuesday that he met with Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in Damascus and agreed to an immediate ceasefire in northern and northeastern Syria.
- The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded on Tuesday to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for the "discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit."
- Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said Tuesday that she and other detainees of the Gaza aid flotilla had no access to clean water during their detention in Israel and became ill as a result.
- Moroccan authorities have signed an agreement to strengthen mechanisms for preventing and combating corruption following recent youth-led protests demanding reform and transparency.
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper discussed efforts to end the war in Gaza and President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan, the State Department said Tuesday.
- Six international activists detained from a Gaza-bound aid flotilla remain in Israeli detention, the Israeli legal center Adalah said Tuesday.
- Protesters held sit-ins in support of Palestine at 20 train stations in several Dutch cities Tuesday, including Utrecht, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
- Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya called Tuesday for “real” guarantees to ensure an end to Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.
- Fifteen Turkish activists, unlawfully detained by Israel aboard the Gaza-bound Global Sumud humanitarian aid flotilla, landed at Istanbul Airport on Tuesday.
- The US federal government shutdown stretched into its seventh day Tuesday, with no resolution in sight, after Senate Democrats again blocked a Republican-led proposal to extend government funding through Nov. 21.
BUSINESS & ECONOMY
A Canadian minister said Tuesday that trade talks at the White House were "successful" though no immediate deal was reached on steel and aluminum tariffs.
"We concluded what I think was a successful, positive, substantive conversation with President (Donald) Trump on trade issues," Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-US trade, told reporters in Washington, DC.
The World Bank raised its economic growth forecast for China on Tuesday to 4.8% for 2025 in spite of months of trade disruptions between the world's top two economies.
The new gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection is 0.8 percentage points higher than the World Bank's April forecast, and it is closer to the Chinese government's "around 5%" growth target.
