I just watched a video of a young man from South Lebanon who stepped out of a car in the middle of the road & ran into a field, a few metres away, before a drone struck him there. He ran so as not to put anyone around him in danger, & ran straight into his death, deliberately, before ascending as a Martyr. The truth is that “Israel” has been hunting the best of us down because they dare defend us, our land, & our freedom, & because they have chosen to stand in the way of its expansionist project, rather than passively waiting on the empty illusion of negotiations we have been fed for eight decades. No one can, in seriousness, distort reality & claim otherwise, & argue that anything short of a firm refusal to accept “Israel” as a fait accompli imposed over our dead bodies is the reason behind our community’s political & military organisation. It is absurd to suggest that any kind of peace is possible with an Entity that established itself through the destruction of homes & the killing of those inside them, before appropriating them & claiming those who settled in them have been living there for centuries. & it is just as absurd to place the blame on anyone but the aggressor. We in South Lebanon did not choose to fight “Israel” because it is anyone else’s war. We rose first in response to the massacres perpetrated against us, & then to the laissez-faire attitude enabled by a State that was supposedly here to protect us but never did. Today, many try to distort this reality by claiming that our political organisation & representatives have taken advantage of the situation. But none of them offers any argument that is serious or coherent enough to explain why we would choose to sustain a struggle that costs us the best of our people, along with our serenity, security, & future. Instead, they choose to abstract away the reality imposed on us, generation after generation, since 1948.

🧵 On “peace” & “law”: Many are attempting to defend the unilateral & unfounded decision by Joseph Aoun & Nawaf Salam to initiate direct talks with “Israel” (a first step toward the “peace process” both have openly endorsed since taking office) by appealing to its conformity with Lebanese law. This reasoning is flawed from the outset. To understand why, one must first return to the missions that underpinned their appointment: 1/ the disarmament of Hizbullah & 2/ the eventual conclusion of peace agreements with “Israel.” Their mandate is structured around these missions that seek to consolidate “Israel’s” long-term regional security &, by extension, advance the United States’ interests in the region. 1/ The problem with the legal framework is that it treats as settled what is in fact the core of the issue, & reduces a historically & politically charged situation to a question of legal procedure as though it could be approached within an already agreed framework. Lebanon’s enmity toward “Israel” is not a variable that can be interpreted under constitutional rules. It is the product of a long historical continuum of war & aggression that has shaped the very conditions of the Lebanese State & its regional environment, & it is a constituted condition that structures Lebanon’s political & social reality. In this perspective, situating the Lebanese “relationship” with “Israel” within a purely legal framework is insufficient & misleading. It presupposes the existence of a shared normative order in which “Israel” is already a normal interlocutor, capable of being engaged through ordinary constitutional mechanisms, despite the fact that this premise is rejected by a large segment of Lebanese society, & it abstracts it from the past 78 years, as if no historical experience constrains or informs the present, & as if legal formality alone can override that accumulated reality. 2/

Hizbullah Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem’s speech addressing the latest developments & current situation, highlights below ⬇️

https://twitter.com/trhxianl/status/2042528960848765248

Sheikh Naim Qassem: In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, & prayers & peace be upon the noblest of creation, our master, our beloved, & our leader, our Prophet Muhammad, may God’s prayers & peace be upon him & his pure & good family, his righteous & chosen companions, & upon all the prophets & the righteous until the Day of Judgement. Peace, mercy, & blessings of God be upon you. Today, we will define our reading of this phase on the basis that numerous developments have taken place, requiring a comprehensive position that clarifies Hizbullah’s perspective on the course of events. At the outset, I extend my congratulations to Christians on the occasion of their glorious Easter feast. We ask Almighty God to grant us all success in following in the footsteps of the Messiah, peace be upon him, in love, in social service, & in all the highest noble virtues that lead us to stand together always in the service of humanity.

Hajj Ali Choeib was a presence that shaped how entire generations came to understand war, truth, & “Israel.” He shaped our awareness through his professionalism & his clarity, & drew the contours of our understanding in moments when the noise of journalists looking for fame & attention easily prevailed. As the voice of Al Manar, he always spoke from the front that he never left even when others stepped back. His place was always there, bearing witness for us all.

Hajj Ali Choeib’s journalism wasn’t about spectacle but about conscience. No exaggerations… he delivered what needed to be said, with precision & conscience. His journalism was an act of integrity, informing without distorting, honouring sacrifice without exploiting it.

“Israel” assassinated him today, along with Fatima Ftouni (Al Mayadeen) & her brother, who is also a cameraman.

Al Fatiha.


He was the sole correspondent south of the Litani River during the 2006 “Israeli” aggression on Lebanon. He used to meet the rest of the team at the Khardali crossing to give the journalists of Al Manar his tapes, as there was no Internet connection everywhere like there is today. He covered the Liberation of Lebanon in 2000, as well as the fights against the Takfirists in the Beqaa in 2017. The journalists at Al Manar are remembering now how he taught them, they’re calling him a mentor, & the leading mentor of war media.

Hizbullah SG Sheikh Naim Qassem’s speech (4 March 2026), highlights in English below ⬇️

https://twitter.com/trhxianl/status/2029234672350445710

Sheikh Naim Qassem: The blessed month of Ramadan is the month of mercy and forgiveness. I ask Allah Almighty to accept our deeds & to make us among those who observe its fasting, prayers, worship, & good actions in the best manner. God willing.

Thread: Any assessment of Hizbullah’s decision tonight must situate it within the cumulative regional trajectory rather than treat it as a sudden, isolated or unexpected escalation. Hizbullah publicly articulated its rationale in its initial statement, & the timing corresponds to a sequence of developments that, taken together & individually, have significantly altered the regional strategic environment. 1/ First, the question of the “regionalisation” of the war has been widely mischaracterised in the past few days. To put it clearly, Iran had stated explicitly that any direct attack on its sovereignty would trigger retaliation against US assets in the region. In reality, regardless of what Iran had made clear, it is “Israel’s” military operations that have steadily expanded in geographic scope across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, & beyond, with consistent US political & military backing. Framing Iran as the driver of regionalisation overlooks the reality that the war’s theatre has already been widened through sustained “Israeli” action endorsed by Washington, & that is, for months. 2/

2 March 2026 — Hizbullah: In retaliation for the pure blood of the Guardian of the Muslims, His Eminence Grand Ayatollah Imam Sayyid Ali al-Husseini al-Khamenei, may his noble secret be sanctified, which was unjustly & treacherously shed by the criminal Zionist Enemy, & in defence of Lebanon & its people, & within the framework of responding to repeated “Israeli” aggressions, at midnight between Sunday & Monday, March 2, 2026, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon targeted the Mishmar HaCarmel missile defence site belonging to the “Israeli” Enemy’s Army, south of the occupied city of Haifa, with a barrage of precision missiles & a swarm of drones.

The leadership of the Resistance has long affirmed that the continuation of “Israeli” aggressions & the assassination of our leaders, our youth, & our people grants us the right to defend ourselves & to respond at the appropriate time & place.

The “Israeli” Enemy cannot continue its aggression, which has extended for fifteen months, without receiving a warning response aimed at stopping this aggression & withdrawing from the occupied Lebanese territories.

This response is a legitimate defensive response, & officials & concerned parties must put an end to the “Israeli”-American aggression against Lebanon. 3 March 2026 — (1) Hizbullah: In response to the criminal “Israeli” aggression that has targeted dozens of Lebanese cities & towns, including the southern suburbs of Beirut, resulting in the martyrdom of dozens of men, women, & children, the injury of many others, the destruction of buildings, civilian infrastructure, & the terrorising & displacement of innocent civilians, the Islamic Resistance targeted, at 5 AM today, with a drone strike, the radar sites & control rooms at the Ramat David Air Base in northern occupied Palestine.

The Islamic Resistance is committed to defending its land & people, especially as the “Israeli” Enemy has crossed the borders with its criminal actions. The response has been directed at military sites, unlike the Enemy’s approach of targeting civilians. This is the least that can be done to defend the people & prevent the Enemy from continuing its dangerous objectives against Lebanon, the State, the people, & the Resistance.

﴿And victory is only from Allah, the Almighty, the Wise.﴾

Thread 🧶: Why is “Israel” assassinating engineers in South Lebanon?

On October 1st, 2025, an “Israeli” war drone assassinated Lebanese engineers Mustafa Rizk & Ahmad Saad in their car while they were on their way to the town of Khiam in South Lebanon. The two engineers were surveying the destruction of homes caused by the Enemy’s aggression, as part of Hizbullah’s reconstruction effort, a vital step that the Lebanese State continues to ignore, despite the fact that it would allow the people of South Lebanon to regain stability & return to their lives, as many remain displaced since last year.
All branches of the Lebanese State have remained in the silence of the grave, & the Empire-aligned Lebanese media has deliberately turned a blind eye to this crime, just as it has ignored the killing of hundreds of Lebanese civilians by “Israel” on a daily basis for almost two years now. 1/ This assassination is one of many crimes that illustrate the overarching objective of “Israel” in South Lebanon: the destruction of the entire social fabric that sustains the Resistance. This policy is dangerous for several reasons & on several levels. 2/

On this day one year ago the men of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon conducted the Odaissi ambush against the IOF. The village of Odaissi was among the first that the “Israeli” Enemy army advanced into, launching its ground invasion against Lebanon on September 30, 2024. The details below. 🧵 At dawn, on October 2, a force from the IOF Egoz Unit advanced towards the village of Odaissi, attempting to penetrate & seize control of it. Leading the manoeuvres in the eastern sector of South Lebanon was the 98th Division. The Enemy unit entered a building where Hizbullah fighters were stationed, triggering fierce face-to-face clashes. It was here that the “Israeli” forces realised they had walked into an ambush: Hizbullah fighters opened fire from all directions, including surrounding buildings, & soon after, anti-armour missiles & mortar shells were launched at the enemy troops. 🧵

September 27, 2025 — Hizbullah SG Sheikh Naim Qassem’s speech on the occasion of the 1 year commemoration of the martyrdom of the Martyr, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah

https://twitter.com/trhxianl/status/1956279952963252375

The speech has started, I will share highlights below.

“Israel’s” war on Lebanon, launched on September 23, 2024, was presented as a “limited campaign against Hizbullah targets in South Lebanon.” “Israel” claimed the destruction of buildings was necessary because they housed fighters, weapons, or tunnels. But @amnesty’s investigation published today found that the reality was far from “limited or targeted.” Below is an attempt to summarise with some comments. 1/ As per the report, satellite imagery, videos, & witness testimony show that “Israeli” forces used bulldozers & manually laid explosives to flatten vast civilian areas, often while in full control of the land. “Israeli” soldiers were filmed blowing up homes, ripping apart roads & football pitches, & even celebrating the destruction. Residents described not only the loss of houses but also the uprooting of trees, the burning of Hussainiyas, & the dismantling of basic infrastructure like electricity poles. 2/

Hizbullah’s Member of Parliament (& father of a Martyr Leader, Siraj) says that at the beginning of the war, a European delegation came to tell Hizbullah that “Israel” was a red line & that it had the right to defend itself. He says that in this war, all the values they once boasted about upholding appeared to have no place in reality neither in their actions, nor in their support for the “Israeli” position, nor in granting it the right to defend itself, nor in respecting international law. The United Nations, represented by what is called the “international community” & its institutions, with their structures & global operations, appeared to exist to serve the aggressors who usurp the rights of the poor & oppress them. I will share highlights & some thoughts because I love listening to this man. He is very wise.

Abu Obaida: Today, we stand at the threshold of 4 months since the Zionist Enemy resumed its barbaric, Nazi aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip. This renewed aggression came after the Enemy broke its word, betrayed its commitments, & violated the agreement reached with the Resistance in January of this year. It lied—to the Resistance, to the mediators, & to the world, & returned, not in pursuit of any real security, but to continue its sadistic violence against civilians, against children, & against all forms of life in Gaza. Abu Obaida: Once again, the Occupation turned to the same criminal tools it knows best: the systematic destruction of homes, cities, & civilian infrastructure, as if determined to erase every trace of human dignity. This is not a war of necessity. It is a war of vengeance & a war of disgrace. & yet, in the face of this, what did the world witness? It witnessed a people standing tall like mountains. It witnessed the patience of prophets from a nation that never broke. It witnessed a Resistance that never flinched, not for a single moment.

The United States has now declared open war on the very idea of an international legal order that it had promoted, along with its Western allies, in its narratives that aimed for regime changes all over the world. & it has done so not because this order has shown any meaningful capacity to stop genocide or uphold justice (it obviously hasn’t, & cannot). In fact, the international system has long proven itself paralysed, selective, & impotent in the face of crimes committed by the Empire & its allies. What has provoked this fury—sanctions against the UN Special Rapporteur @FranceskAlbs—is not that the system has worked too well but that, for once, its own tools—international law, multilateral courts—are being turned toward protecting a people facing annihilation, & holding one of the Empire’s most strategic instruments, “Israel,” to account. 1/ That alone has triggered sanctions & the criminalisation of basic human rights work. It is a moment of extraordinary clarity: the United States will tolerate the international order only so long as it never touches Empire (knowing full well the international order is not a neutral system of justice, but an architecture deliberately built by Empire to legitimise its power, manage the oppressed, & shield itself from accountability). The minute its mechanisms are used to denounce the extermination of a people under occupation & ongoing genocide—Palestinians—the mask is dropped, & the full machinery of State power is unleashed to crush even symbolic acts of refusal, even speech. 2/

There is a lack of understanding, in the West, about the cost of the Empire’s approach to West Asia, or what is commonly known, for Eurocentrics, as the Middle East (a term that reflects the West’s imperial gaze). & so there is an urgent need to speak clearly about the long-term consequences of the Empire’s current policies toward West Asia. One of the least acknowledged realities in Western discourse is that the Empire, through all its actors, still treats this region not as an equal geopolitical actor, but as a space to be managed—still governed by the logic of colonial domination. 1/ The West continues to approach the region & its peoples with strategies more fitting to the 19th century: suppress what resists, reward what complies, & rely on regional instruments—precisely, “Israel”—to discipline both the States & movements that are seen as “threats.” The idea is not just to confront armed actors, but to dismantle the entire ecosystem of the Resistance. That includes political leaders & parties, academic & social institutions, religious voices, media networks, & independent governance models that operate outside Western/the Empire’s influence. & the underlying strategy is to prevent the emergence of alternative centres of power that question the legitimacy of occupation, foreign military presence, or enforced economic dependency. 2/

While many applaud the fact that October 7 was a “good start” given how people across the world “woke up” since then & began to realise the centrality of Palestine in global politics & the historic oppression of its people, I still refuse to see this as a “positive” outcome—for the following reasons: “Israel” was unleashed upon Palestine & the region as a whole—beginning with South Lebanon & Yemen—& now, with a bloody, existential war with Iran looming, all this supposed “realisation,” all these “protests,” all these theatrics, have proven to be, in fact, useless. That it took a massacre—a genocide, to be precise—for people to wake up was already absurd. But the fact that they still failed to learn the lesson of their inaction, passivity, & failure to rise to the level required over the past two years—that is beyond retribution. 1/ Today, the United States of America—the single most dangerous actor & power in the world—is openly threatening a sovereign nation not merely with war, but with extermination—because extermination is the new standard of warfare set by “Israel” in Gaza. & after all these years—decades—of remaining passive, of accepting US vetoes at the UN Security Council over absurd decisions, of accepting its rogue behaviour & its self-erected role of policeman, of tolerating “Israeli” crimes, of normalising its existence & its normalisation, & then of crying on social media over tens of thousands of Martyrs—still, as two rogue States prepare to wage war on the very existence of the one State that made it possible for us to resist “Israel” at all, the people of the world have learnt nothing. 2/

October 7 didn’t only change the battlefield, it shattered the illusion that clarity alone was enough. The Resistance acted. With full knowledge of the cost, they said: This ends now, or we end with it. That day wasn’t a message to “Israel” alone, it was a message to the world: No more begging for empathy. No more waiting for morality to kick in. It’s time to choose sides with action. But the vast majority never made that transition. In other words, the tests of moral clarity mattered before October 7. But after October 7, the only test that truly matters is the test of will. & most people are stuck in the earlier phase, in a sort of delayed reaction to decades of violence. That is why the vast majority in this world is falling short of the responsibility now. People still haven’t understood that we’ve moved from needing awareness to needing immense action. Since October 7, 2023, this is no longer a test of perspective. It’s a test of pressure. Who will raise the cost on the regimes enabling this? Who will raise the cost of embassies existing in their countries? Who will make complicity unbearable? Who will take risks proportionate—not to their feelings—but to the scale of the crime? People are not failing because they don’t understand, they are failing because they think understanding excuses them from doing more. & all of this is happening as social media continues to give the illusion of engagement while draining the substance of it. It’s been flooding with Gaza’s pain, keeping people emotionally overwhelmed, & then trapping them in cycles of sharing, scrolling, & reacting, almost ignoring the people who are demanding anything real from the rest of the world. [Bisan posted a video yesterday asking for her followers to be restless—their replies in her comments: “We shouted as loud as we could at a protest today!”] Social media & many personalities on it have convinced people that being “informed” or “heartbroken” is a form of resistance. & with the way Gaza is covered, people have become desensitised, not activated. They mistake exhaustion for powerlessness. They confuse visibility with impact. & worst of all, they begin to feel that witnessing is enough, that feeling deeply is doing their part. It’s built a loop: consume horror, express emotion, repeat—ignoring the voices that have been pushing people into disrupting the very system enabling the genocide they’re watching unfold. After all, these platforms are designed to keep people engaged, not mobilised.

March 29, 2025 — Highlights from Hizbullah SG Sheikh Naim Qassem’s speech (8:30 PM local time)

https://twitter.com/trhxianl/status/1898800073909104982

The speech has started.

Many Lebanese citizens remain abandoned in the illegitimate & illegal “Israeli” detention camps with no one in the Lebanese Government to help or protect them as they endure torture & violence away from their homes. They are held in horrifying conditions &, like their Palestinian comrades who have been sharing their medications with their Lebanese kin, are deprived of food & medical care despite many being wounded, suffering & in urgent need of treatment Many Lebanese were abducted by the IOF since December 19, during their incursions into several border villages. A few of them were released a few weeks ago, & have shared horrifying information about the conditions in which they & their Palestinian comrades were detained. The number of Resistance fighters held captive remains uncertain. The Enemy has acknowledged capturing 7 fighters, but sources confirmed to Al Akhbar that the actual number is higher, with fighters detained since the start of the ground invasion in early October.

Many in Lebanon—media figures, “journalists,” & citizens alike—speak of the “State” as if it is some omnipotent force, capable of action at the mere shake of a wand. They invoke it whenever they seek to assign blame for the country’s dire situation, but their fixation on the State is not rooted in reality. It is an abstraction that exists only in opposition to the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon. In their view, the State has authority, power, & the ability to act—only when it comes to confronting Hizbullah. It is a hollow & politically immature stance. The Lebanese State, since its very inception, has been incapable of asserting full sovereignty, securing its borders, or protecting its own people. It has always been dependent on external forces (& it will always be), & even in its strongest moments, it has only ever been able to do “half-things”—never fully delivering on security, justice, or governance. To suddenly believe that this same State can now enforce sweeping policies simply because the United States has given Nawaf Salam or Joseph Aoun a directive is nothing short of delusional.

There is a very ugly feeling I have been fighting & I wish I weren’t feeling it but it’s very present. & it is that the people of Jabal ‘Amel are isolated & alone—lives were sacrificed & changed forever so that Gaza would not be alone. & in return it seems like nobody in the region even remotely understands what is unfolding in Lebanon at the hands of “Israel” currently. & that is very ugly. There are mothers from our community who still are unable to fetch the remnants—if remnants there are—of their sons in some villages because “Israel” won’t withdraw, & “Israel” is trying to impose its dictate along with the United States. Now I never expect those inside Lebanon to understand because absolutely nothing in their narrative nor rhetoric gives any hope of them changing, really. But those outside, those who see US meddling, those who understand the righteousness of the fight that Hamas led, that the Resistance in the West Bank is leading—is it that hard to look at Lebanon & see the patterns, the oppression, the very dangerous outcome from this all for Palestine & for us as a people of this Homeland? “Israel” normalised the massacre of our people in Palestine as the world watched it & accepted it & justified it, on an hourly basis for over 15 months, & before that for over 75 years. There were crimes & cruelties committed daily, things that have personally kept me up for nights on end & completely shaped my & thousands of people’s childhood & entire lives. None of these went unnoticed by Hizbullah. Sayed Hassan Nasrallah since the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon’s inception from the very womb of Jabal ‘Amel spoke on every occasion to shed the light on Palestine. Incessantly, he told the world, including the Muslims & Arabs: look at Palestine, do something for our people there, act. We were met with radio silence. We fought “Israel.” We fought the US’s schemes inside Lebanon precisely because we could see that the outcome was, each time, the normalisation of “Israel.” Why would the United States want Lebanon to be at its command if not to turn it into another Jordan, another Egypt, with leaders who would fly to the White House & sit down like good puppies in front of the Emperor & accept the deals with a knife twisting right inside the Palestinian Struggle for Liberation?