mario achkar

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

If this doesn't make you sick to your stomach, I don't know what would...

Kids flying kites in Gaza had those kites land on Israeli territory

Not only is this newsworthy, byt residents called the IDF and asked them to respond!

And what did the IDF do?

Well the Defence Minister ordered the military to respond "immediately and forcefully" to any further launches, describing each incident as an "act of war."

I am not making this up!

His exact words:

"A balloon is treated like a kite, and a kite is treated like a drone, with or without explosives. Anyone organizing, carrying out, or facilitating the launches will be dealt with immediately and with full severity."

Please help me understand how this is real, because I'm honestly lost for words

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Israel just closed ALL crossings into Gaza and cut off humanitarian aid

In the middle of a brutal humanitarian crisis. Because Iran fired missiles at them.

Palestinians in Gaza had zero to do with Iran’s attack. This is collective punishment, plain and simple.

Starving civilians who are already suffering as payback for something happening hundreds of miles away.

Disgusting.

No justification. Just more cruelty piled on people with no power in this fight.

Source: Times of Israel, i24 news / Writer: Oliver

[Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope]

Crazy that this is getting barely any coverage. This year’s European Press Prize was just awarded to an investigative report by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. It is entitled “What the Wounds Tell” and in it the journalists Maud Effting and Willem Feenstra document the cases of 114 children in Gaza under the age of 15 who were struck by a single bullet to the head or chest. Almost all of them died or were left severely disabled. They chose to document only the cases of boys and girls under the age of 15 (though often much younger: aged 3, 4 or 7) because these are children who can be immediately identified as such. “A single bullet in these parts of the body is a clear indication that these children were deliberately targeted“, the two journalists write.

This is the article: https://t.co/YkZrpqBWBQ

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨🇱🇧🇮🇱 Over 100 Israeli strikes hit Lebanon in under 10 minutes after the ceasefire was announced.

The toll: 357 dead, 1,200 injured. Among them toddlers, children, families.

This is what "collateral damage" looks like.

[Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 @jacksonhinkle]

🇮🇱🇱🇧 Israel bombed the mausoleum of Simon Peter, an apostle of Christ, to ruins (again)

The ancient shrine is believed to hold the burial place of Saint Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ — in Southern Lebanon

This marks the third time Israel has targeted the shrine, which dates to the 1st century CE

[mario achkar @mariogachkar]

@nawafsalam هل تعد بعدم التنازل عن اراضي لبنانية في التفاوض؟

[mario achkar @mariogachkar]

@SafirAustralia cute

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇱🇧🇮🇱 Lebanon’s deputy PM accused Israel of committing war crimes and trying to turn southern Lebanon into “another Gaza.”

He specifically called out Israeli FM comments about making southern Lebanon like Khan Younis.

Over 1,100 dead and 42 paramedics killed since March 2, according to Lebanon.

Source: Al Jazeera, Sky News

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇱🇧 Sky News reports that Lebanese health workers in Nabatieh are now deliberately delaying their arrival at emergency scenes.

Why? They’re trying to avoid Israeli “double-tap” strikes, a pattern where a second strike hits rescuers after the first one.

War is ugly, but this is something else.

Source: @MiddleEastEye

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

Smotrich: “I say here definitively, in every room and in every discussion: The new Israeli border must be the Litani"

And you wonder why many Lebanese people support Hezbollah despite the fact they also hate them?

[Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ @shanaka86]

BREAKING: Qatar’s Prime Minister stood at a podium today and delivered one sentence that will fracture Gulf alliance architecture for a generation: “Everyone knows who the main beneficiary of this war is.”

He did not name the country. He did not need to. The Arab diplomatic vocabulary has a grammar for this. When a Gulf leader says “everyone knows” without naming, the audience fills the blank. The X discourse filled it within minutes. The interpretation was dominant and immediate across Arabic-language accounts, with Gulf analysts and Arab media converging on the same reading.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also serves as Foreign Minister, called for an immediate halt. His full statement: “This war needs to stop immediately. The aggression needs to stop immediately. Because everyone knows who the main beneficiary of this war is, and dragging the whole region into this conflict is dangerous.” He described Iranian strikes on Qatar as a “dangerous miscalculation” and “betrayal.” He urged restraint from all sides.

Consider the position this man occupies. Qatar hosts Al Udeid Air Base, CENTCOM’s forward headquarters, the nerve centre of Operation Epic Fury. American bombers launched from Qatari soil. Iran retaliated against the LNG facility down the road. The same government that provided the runway for the war is now absorbing the economic consequences. QatarEnergy declared force majeure. Ras Laffan sustained extensive damage. Seventeen percent of Qatar’s 77 million tonne capacity is structurally impaired. CEO Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters repairs could take three to five years. Twenty billion dollars in annual revenue is offline.

The Prime Minister of a country that enabled the operation is publicly questioning who benefits from it while his national energy company faces half a decade of impaired production.

That is not ambiguity. That is a fracture.

The fracture runs through the entire Gulf alliance system. Saudi Arabia hosts Prince Sultan Air Base and absorbed Iranian missiles on Riyadh. The UAE hosts Al Dhafra and lost Shah and Habshan to zero. Bahrain hosts the Fifth Fleet and declared partial force majeure. Kuwait hosts Camp Arifjan and is watching two refineries burn. Every host provided the military infrastructure. Every host is absorbing economic retaliation. And the most outspoken just asked, on camera, whether the country benefiting from degrading Iran at zero direct cost is the same country whose allies are paying the full price.

The market implications are immediate. If Qatar’s political establishment is signalling frustration with the cost-benefit distribution of this war, the assumption that Gulf states will indefinitely absorb strikes while providing bases becomes fragile. A frustrated host is a conditional host. Conditional basing changes the calculus for every military planner who assumed Al Udeid was permanent.

The LNG implications are structural. A multi-year force majeure on contracts to Italy, Belgium, South Korea, and China is not a delivery delay. It is a repricing of the global gas map. JERA’s CEO said there is no spare bridge capacity. Asian spot LNG doubled to $24 to $25 per MMBtu. European TTF surged 68 to 85 percent. BASF and Yara are cutting fertiliser output. The facility that feeds them may not fully recover until 2029 or later.

The diplomatic signal and the infrastructure damage are now the same story. Qatar’s PM is not merely commenting on the war. He is repricing Qatar’s willingness to absorb its consequences. The country that houses the command centre and the country that exports 20 percent of the world’s LNG are the same country. And its leader just told the world, in one sentence, that the arrangement may no longer be worth the cost.

Full analysis:

https://t.co/iFmUcarGdV

[Haytham Kaafarani @hayfarani]

I am a US citizen & Surgeon who took care of the Boston Maraton Bombing victims in 2013. I paid for 7 years to own a small apartment in downtown #Beirut for my 3 kids to enjoy summers there. Today, #Israel reduced my dream home to rubble, with american weapons, paid by my taxes.

[Zeina Khodr @ZeinakhodrAljaz]

#Lebanon PM says the Only assurance his govt received is that Beirut international airport and the road leading to it will not be targeted by Israeli strikes

[Nada Maucourant Atallah @MaucourantNada]

Israel has killed 83 children in Lebanon in a week, Lebanese health ministry says.

Total death toll is quickly rising, reaching 394 as of today.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

Aftermath of Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon’s Kfar Kila.

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/fPhcqlSQgD

[Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) @adamscochran]

1/13

Of course MAGA’s propaganda goons are trying to argue this video “clears” the officer.

So let’s debunk that bs.

It CLEARLY shows he was NOT “dragged”, he escalated and he knew he lacked jurisdiction.

AND that he committed an aggravated murder.

First, note how the officer is walking around her vehicle filming.

[mario achkar @mariogachkar]

@GWRHelp I've been stuck at london paddington for more than an hour waiting for a train to bristol. Will I be able to get home or should I find other means of transportation

[Bissan بيسان @Bissan_Fakih]

People in Gaza are describing the end of the world and the world keeps turning. Helpless.

[فيروز Fairouz @Fairouzna]

وعليكِ عيني يا #دمشقُ فمنكِ ينهمرُ الصباحُ. ❤️

[Bissan بيسان @Bissan_Fakih]

Will never forget this video from 2019 of a Lebanese woman whose husband was disappeared in Syria. Thinking of all the families of the disappeared whose loved ones were dragged into the savagery of the Assad regime’s prison system. May we see many many reunification videos.