Idrees Ahmad

NEW: 90,000 people protesting against the genocide in Gaza have shut down Sydney Harbour Bridge.

🇦🇺👏

The Fix: Genocide Denial in the NYT A New York Times writer dabbled in genocide denial. It did not go well.

In my latest, I examine Bret Stephens’s silly attempt to deny Israel’s genocide. More revealing than the incompetence and bad faith on display is his motive for writing it in the first place—a motive he does not divulge lest he trash his own credibility in the process. 🧵

“One in three Gazans goes multiple days without eating, the World Food Programme said this week. Malnourished mothers can no longer produce milk to breastfeed their children, the injured are unable to heal and hospitals have run out of nutritional supplements to treat gaunt babies.”

Gaza is starving. Where are the American Jewish leaders? A fear of being labelled antisemitic still deters American Jews and Jewish institutions from taking a position that is morally correct.

The mass starvation & killing of Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli gov’t is a chillul hashem, a desecration of God.

Jewish leaders who criticized Zohran Mamdani for three words he doesn’t use should raise their voices loudly here as well.
forward.com/opinion/7575...

If the videos and photos of emaciated bodies and corpses coming out of Gaza were in black and white, what would they remind you of?

Sahat English Sahat @sahatenglish Follow Ambulance sirens are sounding simultaneously across the #Gaza Strip in a coordinated distress signal, highlighting the escalating famine and the collapse of the healthcare system. (Source: IG: mohammed_fayq) The world is about to witness the mass death of thousands due to an Israeli-induced famine. This catastrophe could be stopped immediately by the @UNRWA. The Israeli occupation has turned food into a lethal weapon against indigenous Palestinians. #GazaGenocide #GazaFamine

#GazaGenocide #GazaFamine [photo of medics in scrubs standing together in a line] 4:26 AM • 7/20/25 • 79K Views

🚨 Medics across the Gaza strip have sounded simultaneous ambulance sirens in an SOS distress call about the escalating famine and resulting collapse of the remaining healthcare system:

I posted this on LinkedIn at the same time and it got removed for "terrorism"??? bsky.app/profile/sall...

What effect have Israeli strikes had on Houthi Red Sea attacks? | The National As Yemeni ports held by the rebels were hit again earlier this month, The National examines satellite imagery to gauge the damage

Israel continues to target the same ports on Yemen’s Hodeidah coast. It's been over a year since the first strikes on these ports.

Despite significant damage to piers, visual evidence suggests the Houthis' fuel supply lines from the ports are still active

www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/20...

3 Books Incarcerated Writers Recommend All Students Read What are books to read in prison? Here are three that touch on racism, love and meaning — and they're recommended by incarcerated writers.

3 Books Incarcerated Writers Recommend All Students Read

Frontex unlawfully shared thousands of people's personal data with Europol Under the banner of fighting migrant smuggling, Frontex has collected, and unlawfully siphoned to Europol, personal data for years—quietly drawing thousands of migrants, as well as EU citizens aiding ...

For years Frontex gathered data and automatically passed it unlawfully to Europol. With @stavinoha.bsky.social & @lolahierro.bsky.social we investigated how this dragnet scooped up thousands of people, migrants and EU activists.
wearesolomon.com/mag/format/i...

From @idreesahmad.bsky.social's new must-read @newlinesmag.bsky.social essay (full text at newlinesmag.com/argument/bey...)

Beyond Glastonbury’s Gaza Controversy Chants against the Israeli military led by the punk-rap duo Bob Vylan have drawn outrage, but the underlying story is one of mounting horror at the war from artists and the public

"The politicians and journalists who were hitherto untroubled by the industrial-scale killing of Gazans suddenly discovered a faith in the sanctity of life, and their imaginations took flight."

Beyond Glastonbury’s Gaza Controversy by @idreesahmad.bsky.social.

newlinesmag.com/argument/bey...

About 100 transgender inmates are missing after their section of the prison was flattened, and the authorities say they are presumed dead, said Reza Shafakhah, a prominent human rights lawyer, who added that the government often treats being transgender as a crime. The chief prosecutor of the prison, Ali Ghanaatkar, despised by government critics for his handling of political prisoners, and one of his deputies also were killed. Editor 20 Wil Right

My god - Around *100* trans prisoners who were in Iran’s Evin prison are missing after the Israeli strike flattened their section of the prison. 100.

The current death toll is 79. The 100 trans people are presumed dead, which would more than double the death toll.

archive.is/2025.07.06-2...

The article with an open racist as the primary source stays up, but the racist @nytimes.com will make a Black man delete posts critical of the article.

Except for the fact that they are perpetrated with the moral and material support of the west, using American, British and German weapons.

These daily massacres are no different to what Assad was doing in Syria. No different.

Excellent!

The appalling smearing of Zohran Mamdani as 'anti-semitic' It's Islamophobic. It's racist. It's also completely untrue.

My latest — The accusations of antisemitism against NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have been some of the most appalling smears I’ve seen in my years covering politics.

I wrote about the concerted attack, & pressure for American Jews to define a local political race through the lens of Israel:

Bombarded by Propaganda, the Iranian People Are Uniting Behind an Anti-War Message A public mood is coalescing as narratives from both Israel and the regime of the Islamic Republic jostle for position across networks and airwaves

The Iranian media landscape is awash with propaganda—from Israel, from the Islamic Republic, from diaspora monarchists. Yet amid this toxic atmosphere an anti-war message is crystallizing, writes Nahid Siamdoust in this outstanding essay for @newlinesmag.bsky.social.

newlinesmag.com/argument/bom...

Iranian dissidents—including former political prisoners—almost unanimously oppose military intervention, notwithstanding their deep animus toward the Islamic Republic. An in-depth report on this from 10 years ago is suddenly more relevant than ever. My 2015 piece 👇

inthesetimes.com/article/iran...

She was detained for having too much luggage #travel #traveltiktok #fyp #shocking #dailymail #australia #holiday TikTok video by Daily Mail Australia

25 yo Aussie woman going to meet her US military husband is detained for having “too much luggage” sent to ICE center, body cavity searched and deported. Says she never go to US; husband resigning to join her www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjHwhA8u/

We, members of the academic and administrative staff in institutions of higher education in Israel, call on you to act immediately to mobilize the full weight of Israeli academia to stop the Israeli war in Gaza. Israeli higher education institutions play a central role in the struggle against the judicial overhaul. It is precisely against this backdrop that their silence in the face of the killing, starvation, and destruction in Gaza, and in the face of the complete elimination of the educational system there, its people, and its structures, is so striking. Since Israel violated the ceasefire on March 18, almost 3,000 people have been killed in Gaza. The vast majority of them were civilians. Since the start of the war, at least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including at least 15,000 children and at least 41 Israeli hostages. At the same time, many international bodies are warning of acute starvation – the result of intentional and openly declared Israeli government policy – as well as of the rendering of Gaza into an area unfit for human habitation. Israel continues to bomb hospitals, schools, and other institutions. Among the war’s declared goals, as defined in the orders for the current military operation “Gideon’s Chariots,” is the “concentration and displacement of the population.” This is a horrifying litany of war crimes and even crimes against humanity, all of our own doing. As academics, we recognize our own role in these crimes. It is human societies, not governments, that commit crimes against humanity. Some do so by means of direct violence. Others do so by sanctioning the crimes and justifying them, before and after the fact, and by keeping quiet and silencing voices in the halls of learning. It is this bond of silence that allows clearly evident crimes to continue unabated without penetrating the barriers of recognition. We cannot claim that we did not know. We have been silent for too long.

The Black Flag Group of some 800 academics in Israel is calling upon the heads of Israeli universities and colleges to mobilize the full weight of Israeli academia to stop the Israeli war in Gaza

"We have a choice. To side with decency or with distortion. To silence dissent or to listen.

#GaryLineker has made his choice. And like all heroes, he will not be silenced. Because in the end, truth which is spoken clearly and compassionately cuts through even the loudest noise"

#Gaza #Israel #BBC

From Brigadier to Bot: the Demotion of a US Army Officer to Pro-Israel Sock-Puppet Replies to a BBC News article suggest sockpuppets are spreading pro-Israel talking points

From Brigadier to Bot: the Demotion of a US Army Officer to Pro-Israel Sock-Puppet
Replies to a BBC News article suggest sockpuppets are spreading pro-Israel talking points
open.substack.com/pub/marcowen...

#Europe has been too cautious for too long in its response to the situation in #Gaza. If we allow horror to justify new horror, only horror can grow. #stopthekilling

The first part of my plenary speech today:

(1/2)

The Security Council could end the Gaza war Growing international pressure has not been enough to stop the war

We need a UN Security Council now to end the killing and starvation in Gaza.
My piece for @prospectmagazine.co.uk
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel...

As children, we dreamed of our futures. Then an Israeli bullet took Malak’s My best friend blushed easily, loved our Gaza neighbourhood, and hoped to become a nurse to look after sick children.

Thank you to @idreesahmad.bsky.social & @newlinesmag.bsky.social for publishing & sharing it with the world. For Lujayn's other writings check out these links
www.aljazeera.com/features/202...
www.thenation.com/authors/luja...
I share all comments & praise with her so feedback is always appreciated!

Syria After Assad - Dissent Magazine Hope has been restored for many Syrians. But vigilance will be needed to ensure that democratic institutions emerge and withstand autocratic impulses.

'On the 14th anniversary of the beginning of the Syrian revolution, [Israel] launched thirty airstrikes on Daraa, the cradle of the revolution' - sobering yet hopeful piece from
@idreesahmad.bsky.social, as normalisation is forced upon Syria to lift sanctions
www.dissentmagazine.org/article/syri...

Lost in a Land That Was Once Ours Sharing a taxi across Gaza’s desolate landscape, a young Palestinian writer bears witness to a people’s history of dispossession

"My mind was still heavy from the burdens of memory that the small taxi had carried. Each passenger was weighed down by their own story of pain. And now it had all flowed into a shared experience of loss."

Lujayn, 15, from a displacement camp in Gaza.
newlinesmag.com/spotlight/lo...