NEW: My report on challenges to
#aid
throughout
#Syria
is out. It's based on a year of research, including interviews w/ 130
#UN
officials, aid workers, diplomats, analysts, & a review of open-source docs, internal reports, evaluations To sum up🧵...
I testified before the
@HelsinkiComm
on how Russia & the Assad regime presented a successful blueprint for how to exploit the benefits of core humanitarian principles while simultaneously undercutting them. Now we see it w/ other regimes & GPC
#Myanmar
#Sudan
#Syria
#Ukraine
Kurdish Red Crescent has been waiting to deliver supplies to the NW. The Syrian government has demanded they give up half of their supplies, including one ambulance, in order to pass into the earthquake-affected areas.
#Syria_earthquake
The Syrian regime just gave consent to the UN to conduct XB operations for 6 months as long as it is with full coordination and cooperation w/ the regime. The UN accepted.
We've entered a new level of Orwellian dystopia in this 12 year conflict🧵
Inviting a war criminal
#Assad
to an emergency summit to address war crimes. The world’s strategy for conflict resolution gets more absurd and dark by the day. And it shows w/ the failure to end conflicts.
Bab Al-Hawa is open. Everyone can use it. There’s a Security Council resolution. Easy to get in. Turks are also allowing other routes to be used. Let's move.
Update on aid w/in
#Syria
: After sitting in their trucks for 5 days due to govt intransigence, the regime took 40 of 100 fuel trucks in exchange for passage for the remaining 60 fuel trucks & a KRC medical convoy to Tel Rifaat, Sheikh Maqsoud & Ashrafiyeh
#Syria_earthquake
Border crossings to NW
#Syria
need to be opened immediately. Jarablus, Bab al Salameh, Bab al Hawa. If BaH is unusable for UN, need to authorize another crossing immediately.
Imagine the destruction you seen in Turkey & GoS-Syria w/ intl SAR & none of that for hard hit NW Syria
The expression of a man whose country has just been hit with a biblical
#earthquake
killing and injuring thousands of people.
#Syria
's Ambassador to the
#UN
Bassam Sabbagh yesterday.
#Syria_earthquake
Imagine surviving years of trauma thinking the building around you would collapse from air strikes above you, only to have the buildings collapse as the earth shakes beneath you.
#Syria
NEW report: Russia has put
#humanitarian
aid to Syrians on the chopping block when they are most in need. Why? What would the impact be and what majors donors to the
#Syria
response should do about it.
New article: In this piece,
@iyad_agha
and I argue that a long-term strategy is needed to help the more than 4.5 million people living in northwest
#Syria
.
@newhumanitarian
🧵
“It took four days and nights after the earthquake for the rubble to fall silent…The strongest voices belonged to the women”. Fighting to save their children, “they screamed until their lungs gave out.”
#Syria_earthquake
Painful reporting from
@leloveluck
In
@ForeignAffairs
today - as the Security Council votes to extend
#UN
cross-border aid in
#Syria
-
@HardinLang1
& I argue for the strategic importance of protecting the right to humanitarian aid in an era of great powers competition
I personally know people who have been snatched off the streets in Lebanon & thrown into
#Syria
's prisons.
#UN
should be aware that such discussions feed a narrative in host countries in the region & Europe that
#refugees
can return. You can't guarantee their safety.
@KreaseChan
The UN refugee agency chief met with Assad’s regime to discuss refugee returns. He said they discussed ways “to cooperate in removing obstacles to the return of refugees.”
Syria is not safe because of the ongoing crimes against humanity committed by the regime he just met. 1/2
14 year old Reema was trapped, face to face with a dead boy before rescuers and medics had to cut off her leg b/c they didn’t have the equipment to remove the rubble. Her father, my friend’s colleague, was crushed. 🧵 NW
#Syria
#jindaris
#Syria_earthquake

When heroes are turned into villains by
#disinformation
, it's not just a problem for the
@SyriaCivilDef
, it's a problem for all of us.
A Character Assassination Campaign against
#WhiteHelmets
Founder
@derspiegel
excellent reporting Christoph Reuter
Breaking: Great statements from US and Canada at the UN General Assembly on the Syrian cross-border mechanism. Unequivocal rejection of Syrian regime's "offer"🧵
This Monday marked the Ghouta massacre, when the Syrian regime used sarin gas on its own population, killing over 1,400 people in 2013. I'll be investigating how or if this attack & 350 subsequent substantiated chemical attacks have broken the CW taboo. 🧵
NEW: Excited to start a
#water
security initiative on
#MENA
. As a Jordanian & daughter of EPA marine biologist, it's an issue close to my heart. We will tackle this challenge through a collaborative & interdisciplinary effort
Partners & insight welcome!
6 trucks arrived at Bab al Hawa today with blankets and food. Roads were apparently “not that bad” as I’ve been saying. No medical, no equipment.
#syriaearthquake
#Syria
I spoke with
@RajaAbdulrahim
@nytimes
on
#Syria
#Syria_earthquake
recovery, a new test for a strained system.
“We don’t know what the regime did with it,” Ms. Ahmed said of the 60 trucks. “We don’t know if it went to the afflicted or not.”
In the meantime, other actors in the region, including the Syrian regime, are escalating when no one is paying attention and capitalizing on potential threats:🧵
The death and life of James Le Mesurier: how Syria's disinformation wars destroyed the co-founder of the Syrian rescue group the White Helmets, by
@martinchulov
Immediate
#UN
Statement needed condemning ongoing shelling from regime into opposition areas. In the past 72 hours there have been multiple GoS-attacks. These attacks were not met by reciprocal attacks.
#Syria
#Syria_earthquake
ceasefire needs to be observed
The Syrian government withholds vital aid to areas outside its control and uses the aid system to surveil and control people in areas over which it has reestablished its rule.
What
#thermobaric
weapons by
#Russia
in
#Ukraine
mean based on my experience in
#Syria
: Those near the blast are obliterated. Others will suffer internal injuries - crushed inner ear organs, ruptured lungs & internal organs, & blindness...
Request: If you are going to write about the response to the devastating earthquake that buried thousands of people in Syria & Turkey, please write about the response & the needs while people are still breathing under rubble. 🧵
The Syrian government continues to co-opt, threaten, and even kill aid workers and their relatives, making independent assessments and evaluations on the ground nearly impossible.
This is Ad-Dana,
#Syria
. They need immediate access for shelter, heating, trauma supplies. It’s been raining & snowing. People begging for donors to bring back the services taken away & assistance for fuel. Praying for my colleagues digging people, including family, out of rubble
If there is anything I've learned from
#Syria
, never underestimate the courage and resilience of "ordinary people."
And never overestimate their ability to withstand an onslaught by the second most powerful military in the world.
#Ukraine
#Russia
In case anyone was wondering about the Syrian regime's track record on providing "consent" on humanitarian operations. They killed a rescue worker in northwest Syria 3 days ago. A rescue worker in a clearly marked car.
The tragic martyrdom of
#WhiteHelmets
volunteer Abdul Basset Ahmed Abdel-Khalek occurred today, Tuesday, July 11. While conducting inspections in areas that had been targeted by artillery shelling from regime forces, he fell victim to a missile deliberately aimed at the rescue…
Today we hosted a substantive discussion with
@waadalkateab
&
@Hamza_Alkateab
@ActionForSama
on the need for cross-border assistance in Syria, the state of negotiations at
#UNSC
, accountability on restricted humanitarian access, & the future of aid access at the Security Council.
Spoke to
@rayajalabi
@FinancialTimes
The
#Syria_earthquake
"exposed the ways in which the UN & other aid groups are forced into compromises that benefit the Syrian leader & his associates"
#Syrian
head of intel's daughter works @ CERF the UN emergency fund
Canadian Ambassador
@BobRae48
: "The Syrian regime gave a laundry list of conditions on humanitarian assistance. There should be no conditions on humanitarian assistance."
Pleasure to meet w/
@AminaKhoulani
@FamiliesSyria
.
#Syria
's detainees & security sector reform should be an active file for negotiators. W/ over 100,000 in detention & over 300,000 that have been, the issue affects ~2 mil family members. Their agony is psychological & material 🧵
Great honor for the
@CSISMidEast
team to chat with
@MarsinRA
and
@HamzehKarkhi
on the future of
#Iraq
.
The struggles and the hopes. For more from Marsin, listen to our Babel episode from two weeks ago:
A convoy of 52 trucks loaded by relief items crossed Um Jaloud point of entry between
#AANES
areas and Northwestern
#Syria
, to support the victims of the earthquake. Almost 20 more trucks scheduled to come through later today.
#Syria_earthquake
Thread on highlights in the religious
#Assad
's speech. It was important to translate them directly to hear his thoughts without my/our comments
Topics in this video;
🔹Neoliberalism
🔹
#LGBT
rights
🔹Free religion choice
🔹gender choice
Translated by
@Abdultahhan
#Syria
Medical exemptions to sanctions are clear. I worked on M&E for projects in Homs where certain communities benefited over others. Report on that. Be honest about
#Syria
so we can ensure aid reaches all
@jomanaqaddour
@SSiminoff
@Charles_Lister
@AdhamSahloul
This 👇ain't honest
Thankfully, Homs rural community did not have to import any parts to helped the handicapped or US sanctions would have prevented them. Sanctions may be worse than war. They may well be hurting more people.
Donors seeking to support Syria’s recovery are doing so without addressing the government’s systematic manipulation of the aid system. This will entrench the deprivation and oppression that started the war, prolonging instability far into the future.
For those of us who have been in the aid sector & worked on protection, I hope I did your concerns justice after all these yrs. This is my valentine to the people of Syria & all the aid workers & protection actors doing their best in bad situations. Arabic translation coming
"Syria agreed on Monday to halt drug trafficking across its borders with Jordan and Iraq, and identify who was producing and transporting narcotics."
I wonder how the Syrian regime is going to crack the greatest mystery of our time. Who is producing Captagon?
Regional leaders met in
#Jordan
Monday to discuss
#Syria
’s return to the Arab fold and a
#Jordanian
proposal to reach a “political solution” to the Syrian conflict.
Unclear to me how giving Assad everything he wants engenders “refugee return”. Certainly not “safe & voluntary” return. It hasn’t struck me that any states involved in normalization have seen addressing human rights as a priority.
#nonrefoulement
Nine years ago today, the
#Assad
regime used sarin gas on the people of Eastern
#Ghouta
#Syria
, killing 1,400 people. This regime has committed over 300 documented chemical attacks on its own people.
On Syria's normalization
What I'd like to say is can we go back to not caring about the Arab League? But this move fosters impunity & degrades taboos that lead to more violence & instability
Leaders can shake hands but you can only stem the spillover of bad governance for so long
I feel very lucky to have met Father Paolo at Deir Mar Musa
#syria
. He was an incredible and fearless activist whose drive to create genuine interfaith dialogue angered the regime and ISIS. He’s been missing since 2013 like so many other activists.
#InternationalDayofDisappeared
"More than 24 different countries have sent aid to Syria so far. Now we need to make sure it is getting to those who need and that it's not under control of armed factions who can limit it," says
@CSISMidEast
's
@WillTodman
on
@BBCWorld
.
My thoughts to
@ElizHagedorn
The
#UN
operating with the regime’s permission, as the Syrians proposed, defeats the purpose of the XB mechanism. “If we knew the regime's consent was reliable, we wouldn't need the crossborder agreement"
@AlMonitor
#Syria
#UN
ERC Martin Griffiths to visit affected areas in Turkey & Syrian Govt controlled areas
In the name of principled humanitarian aid to those most in need, moral support, & intl attention, we would like to see him in all affected areas including NW
#Syria
#TurkeySyriaEarthquake
Was an honor to be a part of
@ArabReform_ARI
@BoschStiftung
conference on environmental politics in the Middle East, hosted in
#Lebanon
.
My two cents on why waiting for sustainability and environmental justice after conflict doesn't work.
"Lebanon once a water abundant country now falls into the level of classification of water scarcity. The water is so polluted that it burns your skin and parts of Beirut and the bodies of water in the country are so polluted that they have 100 times the level of bacteria that it…
Thinking of Samira al-Khalil, Razan Zaitouneh, Wael Hamade, and Nazem Hammadi, four incredibly brave people, who disappeared in
#Douma
#Syria
today 8 yrs ago. Thinking of their loved ones and the loved ones of over 120,000 disappeared people in Syria.
#Douma4
From the impact of Covid-19 to authoritarian impunity worldwide, the 2021
#orwellprize
for Journalism longlist features the best commentary and collaborative reporting, all in pursuit of Orwell's ambition 'to make political writing into an art':
On the backs of millions across the Middle East that risked their lives or died in the past 12 years.
Trying to remember Lina Attalah's words, "We can't be prisoner to the hegemony of the present."
Hard to bring a child into what seems like an increasingly hopeless world. But everyday she gets stronger, smarter, funnier, and sassier, I get less worried. May all girls be able to grow up to be their fullest selves
#morethanahashtag
#DayOfTheGirl
I watched Obama announce that he was going to congress after the chemical attack on E. Ghouta, while sitting in Hôtel des Mille Collines (aka Hotel Rwanda). I was interviewing survivors of aftershock genocides in the DRC & Rwanda.
@newlinesmag
@im_PULSE
International aid to Syria is at an inflection point. 11 years in, the majority of Syria’s population is displaced and lacks basic necessities. While Western donor governments have contributed nearly $2.5 billion a year in humanitarian aid, needs continue to rise. But...
"Do you think there's anything that could make the Syrian govt get out of the illegal drug business?"
"Yes, bringing down the govt."
This week on Babel, intrepid reporter Christoph Reuter
@derspiegel
. You don't want to miss it.
#Syria
Francesco Galtieri, a UN official, said, “We are are carefully reviewing it, also to openly discuss it in the coming weeks with our donors, who are as concerned as we are that the impact of the assistance to the people in
#Syria
is maximized,”
@seldeeb
On the ten year anniversary of
#Syria
's
#revolution
, the team at
@CSISMidEast
brings to you the stories of 5 courageous people whose lives have been upended by a brutal regime & war. Proud to call the people I interviewed for this friends.
As a Jordanian American who grew up in DC loving on Bad Brains and the 80s punk rock scene, this is one of the most epic threads I've seen in awhile. In memory of Geeby Dajani, Palestinian trailblazer in the
#punk
rock and
#hiphop
scene in the US.
I don’t usually do threads but today I wanna tell y’all why these 20 seconds of footage of a kid in a blue and red jacket stage diving at a Bad Brains concert at CBGB’s in NYC in 1982 are important. Then I wanna tell y’all this kid’s story.
NW
#Syria
where most people were forcibly displaced and lived through aerial bombardment. What more do they have to go through?
Now an earthquake with hundreds trapped, injured, and killed.
After a second tremor, Reema yelled over to her cousin: “take cover. Save yourself.” Imagine what a child has gone through to have that kind of grit after losing a leg and a parent.
#Syria_earthquake
In northern and eastern Syria, which are largely beyond Syrian government control, violence, volatility, and persistent uncertainty hamper donor efforts to aid communities and make them more resilient. Addressing their needs can't wait for an end to the conflict.
NEW: report finds that 47% of UN procurement in
#Syria
awarded to risky or highly risky suppliers (e.g., Desert Falcon co-owned by Fadi Saqr, the leader of the NDF that committed the Tadamon massacre)
by
@Karam__Shaar
@eyad_hamid
@SyrianLDP
@oopensyr
: 🧵
Must read
@Elizrael
@NewlinesInst
"[
#Syria
's] state apparatus has become even more rapacious and extractive. This dynamic of state atrophy and regime predation and resurgence is unlikely to change, even with massive injections of foreign assistance."
@NicholasDanfort
Another favorite: everyone who was suffering from bombardment should have known that Russia would intervene & known better. "I know your kids were killed by barrel bombs but keep it together, the Russians are coming." I don't recall anyone saying their intervention was inevitable
In case Syrians didn't get the hint after being bombed, besieged, & having 100,000 country men & women detained, the Syrian govt in its infinite wisdom has passed a new law enforcing a 6 month prison sentence for those who spread disinformation undermining the state's reputation.
Assad regime expands crackdown on freedom of speech, as if existing penalties were somehow insufficient.
Syria Approves Law Tightening Freedom Of Speech - I24NEWS
The UN accepting this means nothing. The XB mandate is dead. In its current form, it defeats nearly every reason it was created in the first place. None of those reasons have gone away.