Day 21 of #30Days30Causes: Give Me A Paw is on the ground in Lebanon as the war unfolds and they have already evacuated and rescued 73 animals. They've also reached and fed +200 animals with the help of locals and civil defense in hard-to-reach areas givemeapawlb.org
Over just 8 days, nearly 760,000 have been displaced from their homes, 570 have been killed, and 1,444 have been wounded.
Next Tuesday, @timep.bsky.social is bringing you a panel of Lebanese experts to unpack what's happening and to make the urgent case for deescalation. Join us.
Headlines are systematically dehumanizing the Lebanese people who are being killed, injured, and displaced. But these are the types of people that Israel is killing with its escalation in Lebanon-- a priest serving his parishioners to his dying breath on the land he calls home.
Father al-Rahi was the Maronite Catholic parish priest of Qlayaa in Marjayoun.
When an Israeli Merkava tank hit a house there, wounding the owner and his wife, Father al-Rahi and others rushed to the scene to help. The tank then fired a second time, killing him.
“We are forced to stay despite the danger, when we defend our land, and we do so peacefully. None of us carries weapons. All of us carry peace and goodness and love.”
These were the words of Father Pierre al-Rahi one day before Israel killed him in Lebanon today on March 9.
Will Ogles be censured for his comments?
Because it's quite hard to read this as anything but a call for the expulsion (or worse) of 4.5 million people on the basis of their religion.
Day 20 of #30Days30Causes: The Islamic Scholarship Fund works to support American Muslims in the fields of media, journalism, film, law & public policy by providing funding, mentorship, career counseling, and real world experience through internships and fellowships islamicscholarshipfund.org
If you watch only one thing today, please let it be this powerful video from @timep.bsky.social's Jad El Dilati, who urgently calls for deescalation and brings to life what it means to be a Lebanese civilian driven from your home amid the horror of Israeli evacuation notices.
Day 19 of #30Days30Causes: DC Central Kitchen works to combat hunger and poverty through job training and job creation in Washington, DC. The organization provides hands-on culinary job training for individuals facing high barriers to employment. dccentralkitchen.org
Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei
• More hardline than father
• He’s the IRGC candidate
• Relatively young: 56
• Avoids public
• Trusted by father, clerics
• Was in military during Iraq-Iran war
• His wife, Zahra, killed in Israeli airstrike w his father
In the last six days in Lebanon, Israeli strikes and attacks have:
• Killed 394 people, among them 83 children, 9 paramedics, and 42 women.
• Displaced at least 517,000 people from their homes.
• Put 3 hospitals out of service.
But this #InternationalWomensDay, I'm also thinking about the women on the frontlines of mutual aid, the women reporting the truth as they live it, the women who are too often the only voices imagining a different way.
May we follow their lead. May we deliver on their vision.
This #InternationalWomensDay, my heart is heavy thinking of the women and girls carrying on in the middle of war, the women and girls whose targeting no one will be held to account for, the women and girls who are disproportionately impacted, yet systematically left out.
This #InternationalWomensDay, I'm thinking of the mothers keeping their families together as they flee south Lebanon. I'm thinking of the preteens getting their periods for the first time in Gaza amid blockade. I'm thinking of the 165 Iranian schoolgirls killed in Minab who deserved better from us.
This is a 5m walk from my house. I slept through the strike (exhausted) but most of my neighbors woke up.
This is my photo from this morning. The hotel is operating regularly. I met the family of a wounded teenager who is at Zahraa Hospital in Jnah. They told me he needs blood
Day 18 of #30Days30Causes: PCRF which provides medical and humanitarian relief to children across the Levant, is rebuilding the only pediatric oncology unit in Gaza. With no local treatment options available, children with cancer have been facing life-threatening delays www.pcrf.net
Finally getting to read "Defiance," by the wonderful @loubnamrie.bsky.social: "an unforgettable account of one woman's fight for freedom--against a father, dictator, and the weight of inherited belief."
If you haven't gotten your copy yet, do so now: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623035...
An important read from Nadim Houry: "Lebanon does not have to accept domination. It requires shifting the strategy and the terrain of resistance – from the battlefield to the political, diplomatic, and institutional arenas." www.arab-reform.net/publication/... @arabreforminit.bsky.social
One year since the massacres in Syria's coastal areas, @maitelsadany.bsky.social weighs in on how the Syrian authorities have responded, what they need to do going forward, and why offering a meaningful and authentic pathway for accountability in this case is so important.
Syrians did not take to the streets in 2011 to challenge the brutal Assad regime to end up with a state that doesn't represent them, talk to them, or protect them. We're not there, but the government can and must do better to ensure we don't even get close to ever going back. (10)
Massacres like the coastal violence are deeply destabilizing to Syria. They exacerbate sectarian tensions and leave civilians feeling unrepresented and unprotected by the central government and they create a culture of impunity that encourages incidents like this to continue. (9)
The government has to center victims in the design of any and all accountability processes, and it has to be way, way more transparent about its decision-making on files like this-- releasing full reports, explaining who it is prosecuting and why, and broadcasting key trials. (8)
One year since Syria's coastal attacks, there's much more to be done. The government has to get serious, not only about protecting minorities but guaranteeing their equal rights and place in society. It has to have 0 tolerance for sectarianism, incl and especially in its own camp. (7)
Though the trial is historic, it was only announced a day before it started--raising questions on the right of victims to participate, is operating with a vague legal framework, and has not been holistically covered by the media in a way intended to inform the public. (6)
Though these steps are welcome, they are not sufficient to bring about full accountability. The fact-finding committee has yet to release its full findings with the public and very little information has been made available on who was identified as a perpetrator and why. (5)
The new government ultimately established a fact-finding committee to investigate, which culminated in the release of a summary of its findings, the referral of 298 government forces and 265 regime remnants to the attorney general, and a first trial of 14 defendants. (4)
Throughout the coastal violence, Syrians were murdered, tortured, had their homes looted and burned, and were displaced. Though some government forces tried to protect civilians (and some were even killed by regime remnants), other factions were complicit in horrific abuses. (3)
The Commission of Inquiry estimates at least 1,400 were killed in Syria's coastal violence. It reports a disturbing trend in which men were first identified as Alawi, separated from women and children, and taken outside to be shot and killed. Bodies were left in the street for days. (2)
It's already been one year since the coastal attacks in Syria, when clashes between Assad regime remnants and government and government-aligned security forces spiraled into a harrowing campaign of massacres targeting primarily Alawi civilian communities. (1)
The US is actively choosing Israel over US servicemen it is placing in harm's way, US citizens who it has left stranded and unsafe with no support, and US allies who it has business, military, and security interests with.
The US is actively choosing Israel over all of us.
