Fares Akram

Journalist covering Gaza. Retweets not endorsement, etc.

[Alaa From Gaza @alaafromgaza92]

Imagine preventing journalists from covering a protest by seriously ill patients whose only demand was the right to access medical treatment abroad.

Under Hamas, public protests that are not organized or approved by the movement are often treated as unacceptable. If such protests take place, media coverage is frequently discouraged or prevented.

Several countries have reportedly suspended the admission of patients from Gaza following allegations that medical referrals were forged and sold to people seeking to leave the Strip, with payments reportedly reaching $30,000 per case. Employees linked to Hamas-run health institutions, staff affiliated with the World Health Organization, and others have been accused of involvement.

The suffering of Gaza's people does not end with airstrikes and shelling. It is also shaped by restrictions, corruption allegations, and the suppression of voices calling for basic rights and medical care.

[Fares Akram @faresakram]

The coordinated airstrikes killed at least 6 Palestinians, according to local reports.

[Fares Akram @faresakram]

Just in: Israeli aircraft carry out simultaneous airstrikes on 4 targets in Gaza City early Thursday.

[Nickolay E. MLADENOV @nmladenov]

Following today’s #UN Security Council briefing, I am publishing the core elements of the proposed 15-point “Roadmap to Complete the Implementation of President Trump’s Gaza Comprehensive Peace Plan” in plain language.
• Points 1–5: Principles
• Points 6–11: Security
• Points 12–14: International Stabilization Force and IDF Withdrawal
• Point 15: Reconstruction
A thread (1/16) 🧵

[Dan Williams @DanWilliams]

US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza is preparing a 15-point plan for the disarmament of Hamas, a key obstruction to reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in the war-ravaged territory. https://t.co/y0TgRvMFbx with @FaresAkram

[Dan Williams @DanWilliams]

Israel has expanded its control of Gaza's territory and is considering more intense military action against a defiant Hamas, further squeezing the war-torn enclave https://t.co/SaGaSnPw4F with @FaresAkram @HodaliFadwa

[Neri Zilber @NeriZilber]

Scoop: Donald Trump's 'Board of Peace' held discussions with DP World, the UAE multinational, to manage supply chains and logistics in postwar Gaza. Some even floated idea of DP World building a new port inside the strip or on nearby Egyptian cost. My story @FT https://t.co/TuxtnKukqk

[Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib @afalkhatib]

Hamas has abducted 65-year-old Adel Asfour, father of my friend and anti-Hamas activist Mustafa Asfour, as a way of pressuring him into silence to stop/end his social media activism against the Islamist terror group, despite living in Belgium and being out of Gaza.

The terror group is doing the same with many families of Gazans who are abroad to inflict maximum cost upon those who even think of going after Hamas's fascistic rule, criticize its behavior, or demand better for the people of Gaza. This has been done dozens of times in the past few weeks alone, with the terror group massively escalating its attacks against the people of Gaza in a desperate bid to maintain its violent rule, despite nominally agreeing to turn power over to the US-endorsed technocratic committee for the administration of Gaza.

If you still support Hamas and proclaim to be "pro-Palestine, you are an evil, fascist, ignorant, irritated, antisemitic, vile, and pathetic bunch of noise. Shame on anyone who still endorses Gaza's ISIS regime, pretending it is somehow a form of "resistance."

[Dr. Ezzideen @ezzingaza]

Two weeks ago, Médecins Sans Frontières (@MSF) fully withdrew from Nasser Hospital. Yesterday, the organization released a statement explaining the reasons behind this decision: the presence of armed and masked individuals inside the facility. This reality undermines the hospital’s neutrality and weakens our collective insistence that medical centers must remain protected and kept outside the battlefield.

Most likely, the Ministry of Interior will deny these accusations tomorrow. Many of those who celebrated MSF’s refusal to provide staff names to the Israeli side as a “victory” will begin attacking and discrediting the organization itself. But as always, ordinary Gazan civilians will pay the price for these political games and for decisions made far from the hospital beds where people are struggling to survive.

What makes this withdrawal even more painful is the enormous role MSF has played in Gaza. In a health system already pushed beyond collapse, with hospitals destroyed, staff exhausted, and severe shortages of medicine, electricity, and clean water, MSF has been one of the few organizations still able to provide surgical care, maternal care, trauma treatment, and other life-saving services. Their presence has not been symbolic. It has meant the difference between life and death for thousands of patients. Losing even part of that capacity in a place where every hospital bed matters is not just a political headline. It is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in real time.

The truth is uncomfortable but necessary to say.

Just as we demand every day that the Israeli army respect the sanctity and neutrality of medical facilities, we must demand the same from Hamas. Hospitals cannot remain places of healing if they are turned into spaces of conflict. Neutrality is not a principle to demand from one side alone. It must be upheld by everyone, or it collapses for all of us.

#WoundedGaza

[Fares Akram @faresakram]

12 returnees have entered Gaza via the Rafah border crossings. The entry process from took them about 18 hours.

[Dr. Ali Shaath @AliShaathNCAG]

نؤكد التزامنا الكامل بخطة الرئيس دونالد ترامب ذات النقاط العشرين. وفي هذا الاطار، يسعدنا أن نكون قد ساهمنا في تيسير فتح معبر رفح، وفي الجهود الرامية إلى البحث عن جثمان آخر رهينة. وتمثل هذه الخطوات بداية ضرورية لتخفيف المعاناة الهائلة التي يواجهها شعبنا في غزة.

نأمل أن يشكل هذا الترتيب خطوة إضافية على طريق سلام عادل، يضمن الكرامة، ويمكّن شعبنا من رسم مستقبله بنفسه.

وتعتزم اللجنة الوطنية لإدارة غزة العودة إلى القطاع في أقرب وقت ممكن، والاضطلاع بمسئولياتها بطريقة سلمية ومنسقة. كما نعمل عن كثب مع جميع الشركاء لتحقيق مزيد من التقدم في تنفيذ خطة الرئيس ترامب لتحقيق السلام خلال الأسابيع والأشهر المقبلة.

We are committed to President Trump’s 20-point plan. In this context, we are pleased to have helped facilitate the opening of Rafah and the search for the last hostage’s body. This is a crucial first step in alleviating the immense suffering of our people in Gaza.

May this arrangement be another step towards a just peace, dignity and the ability to chart our own future. The NCAG is planning to return to Gaza as soon as possible and take up its responsibilities in a peaceful and coordinated manner. We are working closely with all partners to make more progress on President Trump’s 20-point plan over the coming weeks and months.

@WhiteHouse
@realDonaldTrump

[Dan Williams @DanWilliams]

With Rifles and Defiance, Hamas Clings to Remnants of Gaza Rule https://t.co/DVSvslGYhh via @FaresAkram

[Fares Akram @faresakram]

@abu_farees_Q @FayezShamm18239 هو بقول انو ترامب استقبل نتنياهو في فلوريدا مش في نيويورك عشان ممداني. ترامب إذا ما استقبل الزؤساء في المنتجع في فلوريدا بستقبلهم في البيت الأبيض الموضوع ملوش علاقة بنيويورك

[Fares Akram @faresakram]

Israel’s military conducted a series of airstrikes that killed at least 25 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after its forces came under fire, a fresh flare-up testing an already-fragile truce in the coastal enclave. With @sheriftarek
https://t.co/a6qleZDLie

[Dr. Ezzideen @ezzingaza]

I do not enter political debates lightly. Not because I am afraid, but because I have learned that in our time, truth carries a punishment. The penalty is not imprisonment but silence, censorship by design, shadow banning, and isolation.

We live in an age where lies march faster than bread, and where saying what is true can cost you your place in society. It is easier to repeat slogans about eternal resistance and unbreakable strength than to face what has actually happened to us.

But silence is not an option, because if we do not speak, others will speak in our name, and they will not speak the truth.

Today, Al Jazeera released a so-called survey claiming that most Palestinians supported October 7 and that the majority reject disarmament. This is not research. It is propaganda disguised as data.

The organization behind these surveys was already exposed for falsifying results, yet the same machine continues, because myth is easier to sell than misery.

Let us speak plainly. October 7 and the question of weapons belong only to the people of Gaza, not to students in London, not to activists in Istanbul, and not to the comfortable moralists in Doha or Los Angeles.

Those who cheer for war from a distance do not carry the dead, nor do they bury them. They sleep peacefully while others pay for their excitement with blood.

Ask anyone in Gaza and they will tell you the truth:
October 7 was a catastrophe.
People want the weapons gone.
They want the war to end, whatever the price, because they have already lost everything.

I say this openly. Gaza curses October 7 and holds those who planned it responsible, alongside Israel.

This conflict is not between two narratives: Hamas’s narrative and Israel’s narrative.
There is a third narrative.
It has no media machine.
It has no propaganda army.
It has no cinematic heroics.
It is the narrative of ordinary Gazans.

Let any independent body come to Gaza, walk among the tents, speak to the displaced, and they will hear this voice, a voice that has no party, no flag, and no propaganda machine.

It is the voice of ordinary Gazans who love life and want to live, not die, for someone else’s cause.

This is the truth, and it will remain so whether the media prints it or not.

* The link to the Al Jazeera post will be in the comments so you can read the real reactions of Gazans and see for yourself what they truly said.

#WoundedGaza
#TheTruth

[Fares Akram @faresakram]

Hamas regroups, collects taxes and works on regaining control.

[Mustafa Ibraheam @mustafaibr]

حماس تعيد ترتيب أوراقها في غزة... والناس يدفعون الثمن
يبدو أن حركة حماس استغلت الهدوء النسبي في قطاع غزة خلال الأشهر الماضية لإعادة ترتيب مؤسساتها الأمنية والمدنية والإدارية، في محاولة لتعزيز قبضتها على مفاصل الحكم في القطاع، وترسيخ سيطرتها على الحياة اليومية للسكان.
وبينما تنشغل الحركة بإحكام إدارتها الداخلية، يواجه المواطن الغزي أوضاعًا اقتصادية قاسية، تتجلى في الارتفاع الجنوني للأسعار، خصوصًا في السلع الأساسية مثل اللحوم والدواجن والسجائر. ويشير تجار ومواطنون إلى أن الضرائب والجمارك التي تفرضها الجهات الحكومية في غزة تشكل عبئًا إضافيًا يُحمَّل في النهاية على المستهلك، في ظل غياب رقابة فعالة تحدّ من جشع التجار واحتكارهم.
ورغم أن ما تُسمى "وزارة الاقتصاد" تعلن بين حين وآخر عن تحديد الأسعار الرسمية، إلا أن تلك الإجراءات تبقى شكلية في ظل غياب المتابعة الميدانية والعقوبات الرادعة. هذا الواقع خلق بيئة يستفيد منها التجار وبعض الجهات المتنفذة، فيما يجد المواطن نفسه فريسة سهلة لارتفاع الأسعار وضعف الرقابة وغياب العدالة الاقتصادية.
في المحصلة، يعيش سكان غزة بين مطرقة الضرائب وسندان الغلاء، وسط شعور متزايد بأن الحكومة القائمة هناك تسعى إلى تعزيز مواردها المالية والسياسية على حساب الفقراء والمنهكين الذين يبحثون فقط عن الحد الأدنى من مقومات الحياة.

[Dan Williams @DanWilliams]

For Gazans Buried in Rubble or Unmarked Graves, a Last Indignity
https://t.co/HAVybU4NC1 via @FaresAkram

[Jehad Saftawi @jehadsaftawi]

Hamas’s atrocious and unrelenting brutality spares no dissent. Today, they killed a member of my family, and just two days ago, they shot a family friend in the legs simply for having worked at a GHF site.

[Dr. Ezzideen @ezzingaza]

Since early morning, my family and I have been living in a state of total psychological collapse.
Today we learned that our homes, our land, and our entire neighborhood, every house belonging to our family and our neighbors, have been completely erased. Bulldozed. Flattened into a barren stretch of yellow dust.

From the first light of day, we have been living the full meaning of defeat.
We have lost more than seventy members of our family. We have lost our land.
We now have no home to return to, no walls to protect us, no place left to call our own.

And then, one of Hamas’s leaders appears on television declaring that “the people have not been defeated,” that “Gaza has stood firm and fought a historic war.”

So let history record this:
I, Dr. Ezzideen Shehab, from Gaza, together with my family, my friends, and their families, did not fight any war.
We were the victims of an annihilation ignited by Hamas from within our homes, only for the Israeli army to descend upon us and unleash its full cruelty on the civilians of Gaza, while Hamas’s fighters vanished into their tunnels.

Let history record the truth: we were defeated, utterly, painfully, and completely defeated.
And it is we, the people of Gaza, who have the right to say whether we were defeated or not, not those who sit comfortably in Qatar or Turkey.

We were crushed, humiliated, and broken after our city was destroyed, occupied, and erased from existence.
We were displaced, stripped of everything we had built, left to wander through the ruins of our own lives.

And somewhere amid all this, I understood something simple and terrible:
My mother’s tears are holier than the homeland itself, and my father’s brokenness matters more to me than any flag.
Because what meaning does a homeland hold when it devours the ones you love, when it glorifies death but forgets the living?

We were not steadfast. We were held hostage in our own land.
We could not leave. We could not change those who claimed to rule us.
We were trapped between a merciless occupier and rulers who feed on our suffering.

And if there is one moment in my life when I must speak the truth, without fear, without hesitation, then this is that moment.

Let it be written clearly:
We were not soldiers in a war.
We were the bodies buried beneath it.

#GazaGenocide