Lebanon has always been exposed to foreign espionage — especially in times of war.
My latest on how Israel’s network of spies & local recruits operate in Lebanon, leading to a spate of assassinations of Hezbollah/Hamas officials & affiliates:
Hundreds of Dahiyeh residents escaped to Beirut’s Tayouneh square & Sabak Kheil as Israeli army warned people to leave ahead of air raids on specific neighborhoods in the area.
Strikes on Dahieh began a short while ago.
Gonna be a long night for everyone.
I’m out! Released yesterday evening after 23 days in detention.
Thank you to everyone for your support 🌸 I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was released hours after my case went public
Will write a statement later today, but for now I’m exhausted.
🙏xoxo
Israel says it's killed 12,000 Hamas fighters – over 30% of the overall death toll.
The remaining 70% are women & children.
Mathematically, Israel saying every single male killed in Gaza is Hamas.
A patently absurd claim which has had zero interrogation from western media.
What a tweet.
- Four Israeli SOLDIERS were killed.
If their youth is a matter of concern then perhaps question their state's mandatory conscription laws.
- *Who* killed 23 Palestinians in a strike on a school in Gaza? How many were children? Why are they an afterthought?
A few minutes ago I was released from the airport! I still don’t know why I was banned in the first place but THANK YOU to everyone who supported and advocated for my release. I love this community of amazing people in Lebanon. Thank you ♥️
Hundreds of Dahiyeh residents escaped to Beirut’s Tayouneh square & Sabak Kheil as Israeli army warned people to leave ahead of air raids on specific neighborhoods in the area.
Strikes on Dahieh began a short while ago.
Gonna be a long night for everyone.
What was a bank hold up (emphasis: not robbery) has turned into a whole demonstration against the banks and in support of the depositor holding hostages inside, microphones and speakers and music and all.
Netanyahu instructs ministers not to say the quiet part out loud.
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned cabinet ministers Sunday to choose their words with care regarding Israel’s war with the Hamas terror group."
This is a pretty big "fuck you" to Israel and the prospect of ceasefire negotiations -- but only because of Israel's original middle finger to to the negotiations via the assassination of late leader and lead negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran
Yehya Sinwar has officially been chosen to lead Hamas’s political bureau.
He is the
#1
most wanted man by Israel and his whereabouts remain unknown.
A bold decision.
Here, an Israeli military spokesperson proclaims on the record that Palestinian journalists are essentially fair game in armed conflicts because they are “armed with cameras.”
Journalists working in conflict zones are considered civilians and protected under international law
The statement released by
@DGSG_Security
the day after I was released from my (arbitrary & unlawful) detention is inaccurate, irresponsible, and dangerous. Their argument attempts to misrepresent and distort my image in order to defend their illegal procedures against me.
#بيان
1-وردت کتب من بعض المنظمات الدولية ومنشورات على بعض المواقع الإلكترونية تتضمن مراجعة وأخباراً تتعلق بموضوع توقيف الأميركية من أصل سوري ندى الحمصي من قبل الأمن العام اللبناني من تاريخ 16/11/2021 لغاية تاريخ 08/12/2021 مدعية عدم وجود أمر قضائي وحجزها تعسفاً.
Netanyahu on CNN: "We're doing everything in our power to.. destroy Hamas because without that, none of us have a future. It's not only our war, it's your war too. It's battle of civilization against barbarism and if we don't win here... Europe is next. You'll be next." lol what
I am here to provide facts: can say with 100% certainty that Hamas does not have designs on rest of Mid East, Europe, or anywhere outside of Palestine. Netanyahu is a fearmonger who feeds off people's ignorance.
My husband: "For fuck's sake, do we keep all the windows open so they don't shatter if there's a blast nearby, or do we keep them closed to keep out the toxic fumes?"
His question punctuated by tremors & the thunderous sound of buildings in Dahiyeh being bombarded
Beirut is on fire with roadblocks and protests today, after the Lebanese lira declined to a record rate of 10,000 pounds to the dollar. This is from Bcharre el Khoury now, which appears blocked on all sides
Hello Hollywood I’m Syrian and a journalist and would love to become a movie star, so would many other Syrians, also “UN journalists” aren’t a thing. Hire us!
This is shameful historical denialism from
@MattMcBradley
@MSNBC
and it is not journalism.
The Nakba is a historical fact and it is not — never has been — up for debate.
Lebanese Army distributed food assistance to our neighborhood this morning. Inside: Powdered milk, flour, rice, sugar, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, baked beans, and, oh, this US Department of Defense army ration MRE....
Life is a weird ride, friends.
Lebanon: Hezbollah took responsibility for planting the explosive devices that injured four Israeli soldiers (one severely) when they attempted to cross the border into Lebanon overnight.
Y’all what the hell is an “Israeli map”?
I had maps of occupied Palestine and some empty bullets decorating my shelf - I guess that makes me a terrorist & spy in the eyes of the Lebanese state. Also I’m literally photographed wearing tatreez in the colors of the PALESTINIAN FLAG
When reports of today’s port fires broke, I opened all the windows & changed clothes so if there‘s an explosion I won’t get stuck reporting outdoors in pajamas again. Wore comfortable shoes, located first aid kit. Wrote a short news story. Reality in Leb is emotionally draining.
Non-journo update related to my live coverage of this event on October 29, for closure's sake: Me & motorcycle dude fell in love
~*~ Big thanks to testosterone-fuelled Amal & Hezbollah thugs and Beirut's riot police for bringing us together ~*~
I wrote about the 'foreigners' of Lebanon's revolution- those born to Lebanese mothers and foreign fathers- who are not legally considered citizens, and who have just as much stake in making Lebanon a better place.
With beautiful photos by
@Tatouk
I need to add my personal opinion that The Telegraph's article is one of the clearest cases of journalistic malpractice I've read since October, and that's... saying a lot.
Lebanon Minister of Transport Ali Hamieh denied the Telegraph's unbylined & very tenuously sourced claim that Hezbollah smuggles and stores weapons in the Beirut international airport.
He added that the Lebanese state plans to raise a defamation lawsuit against the Telegraph.
Two Lebanese soldiers were killed in separate Israeli attacks on south Lebanon today -- one killed while while assisting in a rescue mission w/ Lebanese Red Cross.
Second killed in Israeli strike on an army base in Bint Jbeil area. LAF returned fire - a first since Oct 8
Lebanon’s Medco Petroleum company is advertising “antidepressant mood boosters” to customers who must wait hours in blistering heat to fill their vehicles with gas because the state’s economic collapse means it cannot afford fuel.
Unable to leave Lebanon & exiled from Syria; unable to volunteer help & unable to report on the ground. Arab regimes are truly idiotic.
It feels like nothing to donate supplies or cover developments from the desk. Every new video breaks me a bit more
The toll is now 274 people killed — including 21 children and 31 women — and 1,024 wounded.
Fleeing residents tell me whole villages in south Lebanon have been destroyed in today’s strikes.
At least 100 people killed and 400 wounded in Israel's air assault on south Lebanon & the Bekaa, according to preliminary toll by the Lebanese health ministry - including children, women, paramedics.
Traffic up to Saida deadlocked as residents of south seek to flee bombardment.
Israel conducted over a dozen strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight (Dahieh, Hadath, Choueifat, and Chiyah which can hardly be considered a suburb).
Beirut this morning smells like air strikes. Don’t know how to describe it. Petrol and concrete dust?
In honor of Shireen Abu Akleh, the American University of Beirut & Yafa Fund have announced the establishment of a scholarship endowment for Palestinian women wishing to get a Master’s degree in Media Studies.
I can’t imagine a better way to honor Shireen’s life and work.
Mr Halawi, the branch manager, said he did not enjoy being held hostage. But he has no plans to press charges against the hostage taker, he told me.
"What can I say? It's his right.”
- My detention was unacceptable and sets a terrifying precedent for ALL journalists operating in Lebanon. This should not be allowed to happen to anyone else.
Can every Arab intelligence/security official conducting a compulsory search of my belongings please stop pulling tampons out of my bag and asking, "What is this" in an accusatory tone
In May, a woman was harassed for wearing a ‘revealing’ swimsuit on a public beach in Saida.
Today at private beach club in Dammour, two women forbidden from swimming because of their burkinis.
Can’t win either way.
People need to spend less time policing what women wear.
It's hard to describe the desperation felt by those who risk everything to escape Lebanon by sea.
They've heard the smuggler stories, they know the dangers. But people keep risking it. In some ways, poverty is more violent than death.
A Chilean rescue team is above where the 24/7 shop used to be, searching for a body. Local media reported someone may still be alive in there, a month after the explosion.... I doubt it, but inshallah.
Protestors in Beirut are marching now from the electricity company to the ABL, and from there to MTC headquarters. They’re protesting “everything,” a guy in the crowd said. “All of it. We’ve had enough.”
If Israel can get away with surveilling, harassing, intimidating, hacking, bribing, and threatening ICC prosecutors for investigating Israeli war crimes….. then the prospect of the international community making make Israel stop a whole genocide is tragically laughable.
This story was more than a year in the making.
Now
@guardian
and
@972mag
can draw back the curtain on Israel’s secret war against the ICC, waged everywhere from Kinshasa to New York. Part 1 here, part 2 out this afternoon:
In the wake of Trump's Jerusalem decision, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon -- a country with its own complicated history with Palestinian refugees -- fear compromising their right of return.
My journal after spending some time in the camps of Beirut:
EXPOSED: How can
@nytimes
commission
@no_homsi
to write a story about Palestinian refugees while failing to disclose that she is actually the descendant of Palestinian refugees herself?
#LackOfTransparency
What's the point of the Lebanese lira anymore?
"It’s just a conduit between people and dollars,” economist
@AzarsTweets
said.
Dollarization will inevitably overtake the lira.
Meantime, navigating around its plunge has become routine for Lebanese.
Mikati called for declaring an agricultural disaster in south Lebanon amid "massive destruction" caused by Israeli bombardment:
He said 75% of farmers have lost their source of income, with 800 hectares (8,000 dunams) of farmland damaged and 340,000 heads of livestock killed.
Me (in Arabic): I'll have an orange juice please.
Juice Store Guy: Um. A lemonade?
Me, forgetting where I am: No?? ORANGE JUICE.
Some guy interjecting to translate my arabic into Lebanese: Yes, she will have a lemonade.
Juice Store Guy: *Hands me orange juice*
#Lebanon
On the commemoration of the 75th year of Nakba I think of my grandparents and their extraordinary strength. Expelled from Palestine forever, they raised their children in Lebanon's Ain el Hilwe refugee camp.
I miss you so much. I promise you we'll return.
Lebanon Minister of Transport Ali Hamieh denied the Telegraph's unbylined & very tenuously sourced claim that Hezbollah smuggles and stores weapons in the Beirut international airport.
He added that the Lebanese state plans to raise a defamation lawsuit against the Telegraph.
Brutal storm has badly affected Syrian refugees in Lebanon's Bekaa. Tents damaged & destroyed; conditions freezing & uninhabitable. Evacuations from tents to temporary shelters ongoing.
Eight years in - conditions no better for refugees as international aid dwindles
Abou Fouad's family was deported one day before Eid.
"It feels like they were kidnapped," he grieved.
Lebanon's landscape in recent weeks has been denominated by anti-Syrian conspiracy, culminating in a forced deportation campaign.
I wrote about how Lebanese protesters are reappropriating roadblocks—long a mark of civil war-era division—as a symbol of unity. For
@ForeignPolicy
, with beautiful photos by the amazing
@TatouK
In solidarity with those at Daily Star who have relentlessly worked to provide vital coverage of Lebanon without pay for the last 6 months. The Daily Star was/is lucky to have you, as are we.
Breaking: A mother and her son were killed by Israeli artillery shelling on their house in the southern Lebanese town of Houla, Lebanon civil defense confirmed.
I once entered a site of Roman ruins not knowing there was paid entrance. The custodian was angry until he heard me speak English to a friend.
"Oh I'm so sorry, I thought you were Syrian! You know, Syrians LOVE having PICNICS here."
Well I am Syrian. And that sounds lovely???
- I’m an American citizen, born & raised in the USA, and I don’t possess any foreign passport. It is not illegal for American citizens to visit Palestine, which I did do. I’m half-Palestinian and was happy and proud to take my right of return by briefly residing in Ramallah.
For the vast majority of Syrians in Lebanon, life is lived in the shadows.
Such is the case for Maher, who walks 6 kilometers to and from his Beirut job just to avoid checkpoints.
How residency is weaponized to crackdown on Lebanon’s Syrian presence:
I can't see hypocrites and I can't see terror supporters...but most of all I can't see hypocrites who support terror! So I arrived to
@TelAvivUni
for the demonstration of solidarity with the terrorists in Jenin by the disgraceful students there, to tell them what I think of them!
If General Security wanted to know about my time in Palestine they could have called me and I would have happily told them about my time working for the UN.
- What on earth is a “map of Israel?” I am in possession of many maps of occupied PALESTINE.
- I’m obviously not an Israeli spy and that implication is not only ridiculous but highly dangerous. I have Syrian and Palestinian roots, my body of work is clearly pro-Palestinian, and I bleed Palestine. This point is not even worth contesting.
- The GS statement claims my legal rights were respected -- this is not correct. At no point during the first days of my arrest was I permitted to contact a lawyer, the embassy, work, or my family. I was effectively kidnapped by the Lebanese authorities & no one knew where I was.
The underlying threat implied here is that any foreign journalist working in Lebanon could at any moment, and without a judicial warrant, have their home raided under incredibly flimsy suspicion of ‘terrorism’ or ‘acting as an agent to Israel’.
The host of a prominent radio program just asked me if Lebanon will open its borders to Palestinian refugees in Gaza.
Pls if you’re going to interview me about Leb/Gaza, I don’t expect you to know everything. But a basic understanding of the geography of the conflict would help.
Aid arrived in NW Syria through 2 border crossings that opened today after exiled opposition struck a deal w Turkey as Bab al Hawa crossing impassable due to earthquake destruction.
“No more excuse why aid can't enter northwest Syria," official told me
عذراً على السؤال: 15,000 ضحيّة. 5,000 جثّة تحت الأنقاض. أكبر مدينة فلسطينيّة دُمّرت. 116 فلسطينياً اعتُقل تزامناً مع إطلاق سراح 117 رهينة. هل هذا يُعتَبر نصراً لمن يؤمن جدّياً بحقوق الشعب الفلسطيني؟
US embassy in Beirut just sent out a notice that there will be a chartered flight on April 5 for US citizens and permanent residents wanting to return from Lebanon (the airport is closed to regular commercial flights until at least April 12).
(And no, Mom, I'm not going).
- My detention, which lasted 23 days — including 14 days after a judge ordered GS to release me — and the GS statement made against me both constitute a clear threat against foreign journalists working in Lebanon.
- When ten armed men from General Security’s Intelligence Branch (maaloumat) raided my apartment and arrested me and my partner on the morning of November 16, we were never presented with a judicial search warrant despite my repeated demands to see one.
This is from the Ring bridge. And a small roadblock on Martyr’s square (not pictured). The economy is in shambles, minimum wage is now only worth $68, and more than half of population is under the poverty line.
I’m fine. Was home working when the explosions hit, didn’t have data or phone credit. Went out to check on loved ones & help injured. Back now & reporting.
I don’t know why this needs to be repeated, but “secularism” doesn’t necessitate banning “outward displays of religion” like hijab.
There is secular. And then, there’s discriminatory.
Because of my refusal to be deported without a clear legal reason, I was blamed explicitly for my continued detention - “you’re now here of your own volition,” I was told, as if I had volunteered to be arrested & for my home to be raided.
More than 60 civilians & non-combatants have been killed in Israeli fire on Lebanon as the nameless war on the Lebanon-Israel frontier continues.
@lorienttoday
has paid tribute to children, mothers, journalists, paramedics, delivery drivers...
Their statement portrays me as an Israeli spy, a terrorist/weapons dealer, and a drug lord, which while ridiculous is also frankly dangerous to my physical safety. Here is my response:
Since when are gardens & parks equivalent to the formal salon that your mom keeps off limits?
The problem is:
1) Lack of public spaces & recreational areas in Beirut
2) Most places that appear to be public spaces are in fact private
3) Y'all are picnic haters.
🤷🏽♀️
I also had like Israeli five shekels (shekels are also the currency used by the Palestinian government) in a jar along with Egyptian money, Turkish money, Euros, British pounds, American money etc whatever.
- Contrary to what the GS statement claimed, my touristic visa was not expired when I was detained.
- I still have no idea why the General Security’s intelligence branch ordered the raid to my house. I guess two Palestinians living in Ashrafieh is enough reason these days?
They refused to tell me why they were searching my home, despite my questions. During the raid they confiscated personal documents and some journalism equipment, and a quantity of used anti-riot munition that I have collected from various protests, mainly in Beirut.
- While GS remains silent about their reason for raiding my home, their intelligence branch interrogated me for several days on suspicion of ‘terrorism’ or ‘acting as an agent to Israel’, while they denied me the right to call my parents and my lawyer.
Ramallh is in the West Bank and under the governance of the Palestinian Authority. During my time in Palestine (2014-2015) I worked with
@UNRWA
, the UN refugee agency for Palestinian refugees.
The guy seriously did a whole news report on how a specific people are currently and deliberately being displaced, while also denying that they were previously & deliberately displaced.
Only after the completion of my interrogation did my interrogator allow me to make a call to a lawyer - however, they denied me from retrieving a lawyer’s number from my phone. My first contact with my lawyer was after a week of my detention.
The deportation order is unjust and illegitimate, and I asked to perform my right to challenge it. The response was that I will remain detained until I buy a flight ticket and accept & execute the deportation decision.
They arrested me & my partner & ignore my requests to be presented with a search warrant. My lawyer says the arrest warrant must have been issued by phone during the raid, by the Beirut General Prosecutor after around two cigarette’s worth of hash was found among our possessions.
My American passport that I used to enter Palestine expired six years ago and I certainly wasn’t hiding it from anyone, although I should have probably thrown it away back when it expired 😂 It was sitting in my junk closet along with a bunch of other junk, and was not hidden.
but General Security’s irresponsible statement has put me in a dangerous situation.
- As for the ‘weapons’ cache they found: GenSec’s Intelligence confiscated some empty bullet casings I took from the Kabul airport after the US pull out of Afghanistan & some anti-riot munitions
At least 100 people killed and 400 wounded in Israel's air assault on south Lebanon & the Bekaa, according to preliminary toll by the Lebanese health ministry - including children, women, paramedics.
Traffic up to Saida deadlocked as residents of south seek to flee bombardment.
The deportation order was issued on November 26th. They did not give me a clear reason for the deportation decision, although my immediate release was ordered by the general prosecutor.
- When I was notified verbally the decision of my deportation, I refused to accept it.
They also confiscated a funny hat from when Saad Hariri was detained by Saudi that said “kilna ma3ak” and other similar items that I’ve collected through my years working as a journalist. I am clearly not a weapons dealer as is being implicated in the general security statement.
Another request was submitted by my lawyer to the General Prosecution of Cassation which was referred to the GS, but no response too. My case was finally publicized on December 8th, and I was released on the same day.