Powerful hurricane heads toward Jamaica; authorities warn of catastrophic conditions

October 28, 2025

Catastrophic conditions feared as hurricane nears Jamaica — Hurricane Melissa's path through the Caribbean

On the Edge of the Sea: Jamaica Waits as Melissa Creeps In

At dusk, Port Royal looked like a painting of a town holding its breath. Children chased each other along a wind-whipped shoreline while an elderly man tied a tarp to a weathered boat. Across the harbor, a row of shuttered shops and a palm tree stripped of its fronds testified to storms past. The air was heavy, tasting of salt and the impossibility of staying put.

“I am not moving. I don’t believe I can run from death,” said Roy Brown, a plumber and tiler, his voice steady but small against the roar of the gathering sea. He had lived through hurricanes before; he knows the stories of shelters flooded with mosquitoes, leaking roofs and sleeping mats that breed more fear than safety. “Those shelters—sometimes they are worse than the storm,” he added.

This is Jamaica today: an island braced for Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 behemoth lumbering toward its shores at a crawl of about 4 km/h—slower than most people walk. Late yesterday the U.S. National Hurricane Center placed the storm some 240 km from Kingston, its sustained winds whistling near 280 km/h (roughly 174 mph). Officials warned that Melissa could cut diagonally across the island, entering near St Elizabeth on the south coast and exiting around St Ann on the north.

Numbers That Mean Lives

The statistics that matter here are stark and immediate: three people in Jamaica have already died preparing for the storm—pruning trees and fixing roofs—while three died in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic. Meteorologists have forecast up to 100 cm (about 39 inches) of rain in places. Storm surge along Jamaica’s southern coast could push water as high as four metres—over 13 feet—creating “destructive waves” that will reshape beaches, roads and livelihoods.

There are roughly 880 shelters standing by across the island, but only 133 were reported to be occupied. “They should be seeing people now,” Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie said, urging those in vulnerable parishes to seek higher ground at once. Prime Minister Andrew Holness appealed to the country’s sense of communal duty: “The evacuation is about the national good of saving lives,” he said. “You have been warned. It’s now up to you to use that information to make the right decision.”

The Choice to Stay

Why do so many remain? Some, like Brown, distrust the shelters. Others simply cannot leave homes and livelihoods unattended. “We have fishermen who depend on their boats. If they don’t get back in time, they’ll lose their nets and we will be hungry,” said Jennifer Ramdial, who has fished these waters for decades. “I just don’t want to leave.”

In the Flagaman farming community of St Elizabeth, shop owner Enrico Coke opened his doors as a refuge. “I’m worried about the farmers and fishers,” he said. “They’ll be suffering after this. We’ll need help as soon as possible, especially clean water.” This small act—turning a shop into a shelter—is the kind of improvisation that often threads communities together in crisis.

Slow Motion, Catastrophic Consequences

Melissa’s lethargic pace is not a mercy. When a storm crawls instead of races, its destructive powers multiply: rain lingers over the same hillsides, saturating soils until landslides become inevitable; rivers swell and then crest, flooding settlements for days; persistent winds tear at infrastructure until power grids fail and communications go dark.

“Water kills a lot more people than wind,” cautioned Dr. Kerry Emanuel, a prominent meteorologist. The warning matters: the NHC has flagged the possibility of “catastrophic” flash flooding and landslides, and long-lasting outages of power and communications. The 100 cm rainfall forecast would overwhelm drainage systems in towns and wash out mountainous roads that already median the island’s fragile connectivity.

Comparisons and Context

People speak of Maria and Katrina in the same breath as Melissa—names that have come to symbolize loss, rebuilding and displacement. Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017. Katrina’s imprint on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is a reminder of how long recovery can take and how quickly social safety nets can fray.

The last significant hurricane to batter Jamaica was Beryl in July 2024, notable for being unusually intense for that time of year. Now, a Category 5 in the Caribbean threatens to surpass more than wind and rain; it threatens memory, history and livelihoods.

Why These Storms Are Getting Worse

Scientists are clear that the character of hurricanes is changing. Warmer sea surface temperatures give storms more fuel; a warmer atmosphere can hold roughly 7% more water vapor for every 1°C of warming, which translates to more intense rainfall during storms. Rapid intensification—where storms strengthen quickly over short periods—has become more common, and Melissa is an example of such a trend.

“Human-caused climate change is making all of the worst aspects of Hurricane Melissa even worse,” said climate scientist Daniel Gilford. “We aren’t just seeing one-off events; we’re seeing a shift in the baseline of risk.” For island nations like Jamaica—population approximately 2.9 million—this shift raises existential questions about infrastructure, food security and migration.

What Could Break—and What Might Hold

Officials have warned that much of the island’s western end may not withstand Category 5 conditions. “I don’t believe there is any infrastructure within this region that could withstand a Category 5 storm, so there could be significant dislocation,” Prime Minister Holness told CNN.

Anticipated impacts include:

Widespread power outages affecting tens of thousands of homes and businesses;
Road and bridge damage from landslides and flooding, isolating rural communities;
Agricultural losses—sugarcane, yams, bananas and small-scale farms—that could reverberate through food prices;
Damage to the fishing fleet and coastal infrastructure, threatening livelihoods for weeks if not months.

Stories in the Quiet Before the Storm

In a small parochial church in St Elizabeth, parishioners packed sandbags and prayed. “You cannot buy faith,” whispered a volunteer handing out bottled water. At a school gymnasium used as a shelter, mothers folded clothes and tried to calm toddlers who had never known the sound of a Category 5 wind.

“Every storm is different,” said Dr. Amara Reid, an emergency response coordinator. “Preparation is never perfect, but timing is everything. A fast evacuation can save lives; too slow, and you get trapped. The sad reality is that the most vulnerable—elderly, disabled, poor—are the least able to move.”

After the Eye

After crossing Jamaica, Melissa is expected to move toward eastern Cuba. The path beyond is uncertain; storms of this magnitude often leave a trail of damage and a long, messy recovery. International aid, regional cooperation and resilient local plans will determine how quickly communities stitch themselves back together.

For now, the choice in the hands of each Jamaican is intensely personal: to stay and ride out history, or to seek refuge and hope the floodplain is not their history. What would you do if faced with that decision—stay in a familiar home you have weathered before, or step into a crowded shelter and cede control to the unknown?

In the end, Hurricanes like Melissa are both meteorological events and moral tests: of leadership, of communal solidarity, of whether we treat preparation like an act of love. If you are reading this from afar, consider this a witness’s account—and an invitation to lean into compassion for those who will, tonight, sleep with the sound of the sea at the door.

Agony and despair: the human toll of Sudan’s forgotten conflict

hanad

October 28, 2025

'Pain, suffering': the tragedy of Sudan's 'forgotten war' — Women line up outside a hybrid distribution site to collect food, cash handouts, and high-energy bars for children in Maban

When a Country Becomes a Headline No One Clicks: Sudan’s War, in Voices and Numbers

Close your eyes for a moment and picture a city where the hospital is a series of mattresses in a living room, where children nibble at animal feed because the markets are empty, and where the Nile—ancient, forgiving—flows past people who have nowhere safe to draw a glass of water. That is Al-Fashir today. That is much of Sudan, two and a half years into a war that has folded ordinary life into a calamity few outside the region seem to notice.

The scale, in blunt numerals

Numbers only go so far, but they help us map the breadth of this collapse: roughly 12 million people displaced within their country; 24 million confronting acute food shortages; as many as 150,000 dead or missing. Around 260,000 people remain trapped in Al-Fashir, in Darfur, under siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). These are not abstractions. They’re neighbors, cousins, teachers, patients.

Displaced: ~12 million
Facing acute food shortages: ~24 million
Dead or missing: up to 150,000
People trapped in Al-Fashir: ~260,000

And yet, as one humanitarian put it, “Sudan has been turned upside down. Not a single corner of the country that hasn’t been affected.” Daniel O’Malley, who leads the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Sudan, tells it plainly: the main hospital in Al-Fashir has been struck again and again—more than a year and a half of pounding, and surgical teams are operating in people’s homes. “This is not the kind of surgery that should ever be happening in a living room,” he said.

Al-Fashir: a city under glass

Walk a mile in the streets of Al-Fashir through accounts from activists and aid workers: the town is described as an “open-air morgue.” Internet blackouts make documentation rare and dangerous. When a drone and artillery strike hit a displacement camp on 11 October, local groups later reported scores killed—children and elders burned, families vanished. Photographs were few. The world’s attention was thinner still.

“We sat and watched our food disappear,” says Amal, a volunteer who fled nearby villages and now helps cook for displaced families in a cramped community kitchen. “Sometimes the electricity comes for two hours at night. We boil what we can. We count who is still alive the next morning.” Her voice—quiet, exhausted—remembers the names of those who didn’t make it.

Everyday people paying the price

On the other side of the world, in a small town in County Kerry, Dr Rania Ahmed wakes up to messages about relatives she cannot reach. A Sudan-born anaesthetist and president of the Sudanese Doctors Union of Ireland, she has watched the health infrastructure collapse in real time.

“Hospitals are in ruins. The only cancer centre in the country is destroyed,” she says. “My aunt had a stroke and had to go to three different cities for help. Most hospitals turned her away. I don’t think she’ll survive.” Her anger and grief are tethered to facts: at least 15 million children out of school, clinics destroyed, supply chains severed.

Dr Ahmed’s plea is simple and bitter: “No one is talking about it. We need to push the world—Europe, the US—to act.” It’s a plea that echoes through Sudanese diasporas from Khartoum to London to Toronto: when the camera shutters close, the hunger keeps growing.

Health threats multiply: cholera and a ruined water system

War has not been the only killer. Disease has followed the fighting. Before the war Khartoum ran 13 water-treatment plants. Today, those plants are destroyed or inoperable. People drink Nile water and fall ill. By early September, the Ministry of Health in Sudan recorded over 100,000 suspected cholera cases and more than 2,500 deaths. Preventable illnesses gain ground when hospitals are rubble and pumps are silent.

Foreign hands, local wounds

External interests have not only watched; many have helped stoke the flames. Analysts say more than ten countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia have been entangled in Sudan’s fighting. The United Arab Emirates has been accused of providing the RSF with funding and arms—claims it denies, but which some experts and lawmakers judge credible. Egypt and, to a lesser degree, Saudi Arabia have aligned with the Sudanese Armed Forces.

“It’s not that outside actors started this war,” says Dr Walt Kilroy, co-director of a conflict institute who has worked in the region. “But outside interests have played a big role in prolonging it. When war acquires an identity component—as it has in Darfur, where non-Arab communities have been targeted—it gets a poisonous life of its own.”

Why would foreign states be involved? The reasons are complex—strategic influence, regional rivalry, access to resources. “Sudan, for better or worse, has some gold,” Kilroy said. In a place where politics, ethnicity, and resource extraction intersect, violence finds fuel.

Donor fatigue, a yawning funding gap

The arithmetic of indifference is stark: the UN asked for roughly €3.57 billion for urgent humanitarian and protection work in Sudan this year. Donors have delivered only about €917 million—a funding shortfall of around 74%. Cuts to major aid streams, including reductions in USAID allocations, have left grassroots organisations carrying an impossible burden.

“At one point Khartoum had 1,800 community kitchens. Now there are around 600—dropping every month,” O’Malley reports. And yet, community volunteers keep cooking. “We share what little we have,” says Hassan, a former math teacher turned volunteer cook. “If I had a car I would take my students food every day.”

What does the world owe?

These are questions not of charity alone, but of responsibility. How do we think about conflicts that don’t fit neatly into our breaking-news cycles? How do we weigh the lives of people in Darfur or Khartoum in the same way we count others closer to global power centers?

International diplomacy has tried—last month the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt called for a three-month humanitarian truce, then a permanent ceasefire. The so-called Quad has clout, and yet leverage on the ground appears to be pushing toward continued fighting, not talks. “Mediation and leverage are both essential,” Kilroy said. “But right now the leverage is pulling toward war.”

What you can do, and why your attention matters

So what can a reader do when faced with such immensity? First: bear witness. Read. Share reliable reporting. Support organisations that operate on the ground—local NGOs, medical charities, water-and-sanitation teams—because they are the ones whose budgets have been slashed but who continue to feed the hungry and stitch up the wounded.

Second: ask your policymakers to keep Sudan on the agenda. Sanctions, arms embargos, pressure on external backers—these are levers. “Sometimes international pressure moves policies,” Dr Ahmed says. “We must not let this descend into a forgotten catastrophe.”

Finally, consider the human face behind the numbers. Think of Amal stirring a pot in a house that smells of smoke and boiled soup. Think of the teacher-turned-volunteer counting children’s names as if inventorying the living. Think of a surgeon in a living room, hands steady despite everything.

We live in an age where images travel fast and attention travels faster. But what if the stories we encounter are the ones we choose to keep alive? What if turning our gaze to Sudan today can help stop the next catastrophe tomorrow? The choice, in small acts or big policies, is ours.

Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro files appeal against prison sentence

hanad

October 28, 2025

Brazil ex-leader Bolsonaro appeals prison sentence — Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro had been disqualified from seeking public office until 2030 over his unproven fraud allegations against the country's voting system

Locked Doors, Loud Streets: Brazil’s Latest Political Earthquake

Early one gray morning in Brasília, a city of concrete wings and whispered power, a handful of lawyers slipped into the marble-clad corridors of Brazil’s justice system carrying a document that could reshape the nation’s near future.

Their client is unmistakable even in shadow: Jair Bolsonaro, the combative former president whose name still makes crowds roar and opponents tremble. His legal team has filed an appeal against a staggering 27-year prison sentence handed down by the Supreme Court for what judges described as a coordinated attempt to overthrow the elected government after his 2022 defeat.

“We are asking the court to set aside a decision full of ambiguities and contradictions,” said one of Bolsonaro’s lead lawyers, his voice low but fierce. “This ruling threatens not only my client’s rights but the very notion of fair process in Brazil.”

What the judgment did — and what the appeal challenges

The Supreme Court found that the plot in question went beyond political maneuvering: prosecutors portrayed it as a blueprint that envisaged the assassination of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his vice-president Geraldo Alckmin, and one of the judges who later sat in judgment, Alexandre de Moraes.

Prosecutors told the court that the plan collapsed not because of moral conscience or mercy, but for a far more mundane reason — a failure to secure crucial backing from some of the top brass in the military. “There are plans that die for want of allies,” a federal investigator told me. “This was one of them.”

Bolsonaro has been confined to house arrest since August. Under Brazilian law, he will not be sent to a penitentiary until his appeals are exhausted — hence yesterday’s motion. The legal process here is labyrinthine: Supreme Court judges have no formal deadline to examine the arguments presented in an appeal, and that can stretch patience to its breaking point.

Voices from the street

At a coffee stand near the cathedral in Brasília, a vendor named Rosa stirred sugar into a cup and watched the world walk by. “We lived through an election and an invasion of our institutions,” she said, speaking for many exhausted by the political roller coaster. “All I want is for someone to explain to me how we stop doing this to one another.”

Across the country in São Paulo, a young engineer wearing a yellow-and-green flag around his shoulders said, “He’s my man. They can’t just lock him up for politics.” Nearby, a retired teacher sighed. “Locking people up isn’t the answer. We need truth and reconciliation. Otherwise this keeps coming back.”

Law, health, and political maneuvering

Experts say the appeal might succeed on technical grounds. Thiago Bottino, a constitutional law professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, told AFP recently that while it is unusual for Brazil’s Supreme Court to overturn its own rulings, the court has shown it can — and sometimes does — adjust the length or nature of its sentences when procedural issues are raised.

“The bench is not monolithic,” Bottino said. “Judges can and do reassess elements when new legal arguments are persuasive. That said, the substantive criminal findings are weighty.”

There is also another practical element playing out like a second subplot: Bolsonaro’s health. The 70-year-old was recently diagnosed with skin cancer and has endured a series of hospital episodes — violent bouts of hiccups, vomiting and low blood pressure that briefly landed him in intensive care last September. He still carries the scars of the 2018 stabbing that transformed him into a political martyr for many followers and continues to complicate his medical profile.

In Brazil, the health of a convict can be grounds for serving a sentence at home. In May, a precedent appeared when former president Fernando Collor de Mello was permitted to serve a nearly nine-year corruption sentence under house arrest on health grounds. Bolsonaro’s team has already signaled it could pursue the same route if appeals fail.

Amnesty bills, disqualifications and the 2026 chessboard

Beyond the courtroom are the loftier corridors of Congress where political allies once pushed an amnesty bill that could have wiped clean the records of hundreds who stormed government buildings days after Lula took office in January 2023. The proposal, however, fizzled after large protests made it politically toxic.

Even before the conviction, Bolsonaro had been barred from running for office until 2030 after being found ineligible over claims that he defrauded the voting system — claims that have been widely rejected by courts but remain powerful political narratives for his base.

“There’s a hunger for a leader who promises to shake things up,” said Ana Souza, a political analyst in Rio. “Whether Bolsonaro can remain the personification of that hunger is another matter. Names like São Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas and even Michelle Bolsonaro are already circulating as potential heirs to the conservative mantle.”

And then there is Lula, who turned 80 yesterday. Once trailing in the polls at the start of the year, he has staged a recovery. Part of that rebound came after a trade skirmish with Washington that he managed to navigate with a mix of defiance and diplomacy — an episode that, paradoxically, burnished his image at home as a defender of national sovereignty.

“Lula showed statesmanship when he needed to,” said a former diplomat. “Politics in Latin America is often a tug-of-war between domestic legitimacy and international pressure.”

Why this matters beyond Brazil

Ask yourself: what happens when a major democracy convicts a former president of plotting a coup? How do societies repair the rift between rule of law and political legitimacy?

These are not merely Brazilian questions. Across the globe, democracies wrestle with populist currents that weaponize grievance, with politicians who transform personal survival into political spectacle. Brazil’s courtroom drama is a reminder that the health of democratic institutions depends not just on laws, but on the patience of voters, the independence of judges, and the willingness of political actors to accept results.

For now, Brazil waits. The appeal will wind its way through legal corridors, through petitions, medical evaluations, and perhaps new political bargains. Protesters on both sides may return to the streets. Families will still queue for coffee at dawn. And the clock toward the 2026 elections will tick on, indifferent to the human drama it times.

What would you do if your country was split between those who see justice and those who see persecution? In a polarized age, that question is as urgent as any ballot box.

Ten charged in online harassment case against France’s first lady

hanad

October 27, 2025

Ten on trial over online harassment of French first lady — France's presidential couple Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron filed a a defamation lawsuit in the US at the end of July (file image)

A Trial, a Rumour, and the Quiet Town at the Center of a Storm

In a hushed courtroom in Paris, ten ordinary faces will stand before a judge accused of a decidedly modern crime: weaponizing the internet to erode a woman’s dignity. The charges are precise — sexist cyber-harassment directed at France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron — but the reverberations are anything but. This is a case about rumor, age, gender and the strange energy of online mobs. It is also a story about how a small northern city called Amiens became the unlikely epicenter of an international spectacle.

“You feel like you’re watching a slow-motion assault that no one can touch,” said Marie Lefèvre, who runs a tiny pâtisserie three blocks from the Trogneux family confectionery in Amiens. “People used to visit for the macarons and the quiet streets; now they whisper about things they read on a phone in another country.”

What’s at Stake

Ten people — eight men and two women, aged between 41 and 60 — are due before a Paris criminal court, accused of making repeated malicious comments about Brigitte Macron’s gender and sexuality and of equating the couple’s 24-year age difference with criminality. If convicted, they face up to two years behind bars, a reminder that French law has tangible teeth when it comes to harassment and defamation.

The legal case is the latest chapter in a long-running saga that began in earnest during Emmanuel Macron’s rise to the presidency in 2017. Since then, a rumor — now repeatedly described by prosecutors as unfounded — has circulated: that Brigitte Macron was assigned male at birth. That rumor has been amplified by far-right commentators, conspiracy-minded circles in France and abroad, and a handful of online influencers.

A timeline of escalation

Consider how the story moved from gossip to government-level action:

2017 — Rumours began surfacing during Emmanuel Macron’s election campaign.
2021 — A long-form YouTube interview alleges a family connection and identity confusion.
August 2024 — Brigitte Macron files a complaint in France prompting investigations into cyber-harassment.
December 2024 & February 2025 — Police make arrests connected to the online posts and harassment.
July 2024 — The presidential couple files a separate defamation lawsuit in the United States against a conservative podcaster.
Present — Criminal trial of ten defendants in Paris.

Faces and Voices

Among the defendants is Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, a 41-year-old publicist who has cultivated an online presence under the name “Zoe Sagan” and is often associated with conspiracy communities. Also named is Delphine J., a 51-year-old self-described spiritual medium who goes by Amandine Roy; she was already the subject of an earlier libel case.

“It’s not just about one person’s dignity. It’s about the permissiveness of our public spaces,” said Laurent Dubois, a Paris-based cyberlawyer who has followed the case. “When rumors about private life are weaponized for clicks, they don’t just harm reputations. They degrade public discourse.”

Across the Atlantic, the controversy has slipped into America’s culture wars. The Macrons filed a defamation suit in the U.S. in July against a prominent conservative podcaster who produced a series claiming Brigitte Macron was born male. The French couple have signaled they will produce “scientific” evidence and photographs in that lawsuit, according to their U.S. lawyer — a striking move that turns intimacy into exhibits.

How the Internet Became a Megaphone

Online harassment is not a uniquely French problem. A 2021 Pew Research Center study found that 41% of adults reported experiencing some form of online harassment, and about 22% said they had been targeted with severe harassment or stalking. Women, public figures and marginalized people disproportionately bear the brunt.

“The algorithms don’t judge; they amplify,” said Dr. Anaïs Morel, a researcher in digital culture who studies how conspiracy narratives spread. “A salacious or absurd claim is ideally suited to travel quickly because it provokes outrage, confusion and repeat sharing. After a while, repetition substitutes for evidence.”

In Amiens, that repetition has real-world effects. Shopkeepers speak of strangers showing up at the family’s former chocolate shop looking for answers; locals have received messages, and the town — known for its gothic cathedral and riverside promenades — has had to contend with a new kind of pilgrimage: rumor-seekers with smartphones.

“We sell Trogneux chocolates,” said Luc Chardin, 58, who runs a souvenir stall near the cathedral. “People come to enjoy the town and suddenly conversation turns. They ask questions about things that are not true. You can feel the strain. It’s not only about politics — it’s about respect.”

Broader Patterns: Gendered Lies as a Political Weapon

Brigitte Macron is far from the only woman targeted by grotesque disinformation about gender or sexuality. High-profile figures including Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris and New Zealand’s late prime minister Jacinda Ardern have all been subject to similar lies. Why this pattern?

“Sexist narratives travel well because they elide complex realities in favor of a single, salacious hook,” said Sophie Tremblay, director of a French NGO working on online safety. “They make audiences complicit — people who might never otherwise engage in political violence end up circulating dehumanizing material.”

This weaponization of gender talkers cuts across borders, feeding into global anxieties about identity, legitimacy, and power. In the United States, transgender rights have become a polarizing flashpoint; in France, a country prizing laïcité and republican values, the attacks have leaned heavily on intimate slander and moral panic.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The trial itself will be more than a legal bellwether. It is a test of how democracies respond when digital rumor slides into harassment, and when public curiosity tramples on private life. Will criminal penalties deter future mobs chasing virality? Will legal avenues provide meaningful reprieve for public figures whose private histories are stripped and sold online?

“People love a story where the powerful are somehow not what they seem,” observed Camille Martin, a sociology professor who studies rumor and political communication. “But you have to ask: at what cost? The cost here is human dignity and the integrity of information.”

As the courtroom prepares for testimony and the town of Amiens resumes its slow rhythm of market days and church bells, there is an unsettled question that extends beyond one couple or one rumor: how do we protect truth and human dignity in an era when anyone with a phone can be a witness — or a weapon?

Think about the last time you saw a rumor online and scrolled past it. What did you assume about the person who posted it? About your own role in circulating it? At the end of the day, the digital spaces we inhabit are built on our choices, shared in tiny acts: click, share, retweet, comment. What will we choose to build with them?

UNIFIL: Israeli Forces Involved in Grenade Attack on Lebanon Peacekeepers

hanad

October 27, 2025

Israel in grenade attack on Lebanon peacekeepers - UNIFIL — A UNIFIL patrol in southern Lebanon last year (file photo)

Under the Drone’s Shadow: Peacekeepers Caught Between Fire in Southern Lebanon

There is a particular hush that hangs over southern Lebanon at dawn — a quiet that feels like the moment before an argument breaks out at a family meal. In Kfar Kila, a village framed by low hills and olive groves, that hush was shattered this week by the mechanical stutter of a drone and the thunderous report of a tank round. What unfolded was not a headline about warring factions so much as a fragile, dangerous exchange centered on those who are supposed to keep the peace.

United Nations peacekeepers patrolling near Kfar Kila reported that an Israeli drone came so close it altered the heartbeat of the patrol. According to the UN mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the remotely piloted aircraft “aggressively” overflew the team, was later fired upon by those peacekeepers, and — UNIFIL says — dropped a grenade near the patrol. The mission added that peacekeepers used defensive measures to neutralize the drone. The Israeli military, for its part, said a drone had been downed and that its forces dropped a grenade toward the site where the unmanned aerial vehicle had fallen.

The scene on the ground

“We heard it like a bee that got too close to the lamp,” said Amal, a shopkeeper in nearby Naqoura. “Everyone looked up. You think these things are small until they come too near and then you feel very small.”

No UNIFIL personnel were reported injured in the incident. Still, the event strained an already taut arrangement that followed last year’s ceasefire deal — an agreement that, on paper, was supposed to keep uniformed conflict from spilling into villages and olive groves.

Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, posted on social media that the drone was conducting routine intelligence work and that UNIFIL forces had deliberately fired at it. “An initial inquiry suggests UNIFIL forces stationed nearby deliberately fired at the drone and downed it,” he said. He added that after the drone fell, Israeli forces dropped an explosive device toward the area where the UAV went down, asserting that Israeli troops did not fire at peacekeepers.

What UNIFIL is and what it does

UNIFIL — the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon — has been a presence along this volatile border for decades, initially established in 1978 and significantly reinforced after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Its mandate, renewed by the UN Security Council regularly, is clear: help restore peace and security, support the Lebanese state in extending its authority in the south, and facilitate humanitarian access.

Today, UNIFIL comprises contingents from numerous countries across several continents; their uniforms and languages are a visual reminder of the international community’s stake in a small but volatile strip of land. There are more than 300 Irish Defence Forces serving in the mission, their positions farther south around Bint Jbeil and Maroun El Ras. Ireland confirmed this week that no Irish soldiers were involved in the Kfar Kila incident and that its personnel remain engaged in UNIFIL tasks.

Why this matters

The ceasefire agreement that eased large-scale hostilities last year came with specific stipulations: Israeli forces were to pull back from most of southern Lebanon; Hezbollah fighters were to withdraw north of the Litani River; and only Lebanese army units and UNIFIL were to operate in the south. Yet, on the ground, those boundaries are porous. Israel has retained troops at five border positions it deems strategic, and aerial and artillery strikes have continued in pockets.

“Our peacekeepers are not a buffer to be tested,” said a UNIFIL spokesperson. “Their safety is not a bargaining chip.” That sense of vulnerability is sharpened by the introduction of new battlefield technologies. Drones, easily launched and frequently flown, have become both tools of surveillance and triggers for confrontation.

Casualties and the creeping risk of escalation

On the same day as the drone incident, Israeli strikes elsewhere in Lebanon reportedly killed three people — a civilian in Naqoura, another in Nabi Sheet in the Baalbek region, and a Syrian national in al-Hafir. The Lebanese Ministry of Health confirmed the deaths and injuries, underscoring that, despite a ceasefire, violence continues to ripple through communities.

Local residents say they live with a strange normalcy: market vendors, school teachers and farmers carry on, but every so often an explosion or the wail of sirens pulls people like ripples in a pond. “We harvest our olives and then check the news,” said a farmer near Maroun El Ras. “It’s the rhythm now.”

Competing narratives

The Israeli military frames its actions as necessary intelligence and self-defense against threats along its northern border. Hezbollah and its allies see Israeli presence and strikes as provocations that undermine the ceasefire. The Lebanese government — caught between US pressure and domestic politics — has talked about the idea of disarming Hezbollah, a deeply fraught and politically explosive proposal that the movement and its allies firmly oppose.

This tangle of accusations and denials raises a difficult question: who ensures the safety of those who are neither combatant nor defender but which international law still recognizes as neutral peacekeepers? UNIFIL’s role is not to take sides, yet neutrality does not guarantee immunity from danger.

Wider implications: drones, peacekeeping and fragile truces

We are watching an uneasy experiment unfold at the intersection of modern warfare and multilateral diplomacy. Drones — relatively inexpensive, technologically advanced and weaponizable — have added a new vector of risk to peacekeeping zones around the world. Peacekeepers, once largely defined by boots on the ground and armored personnel carriers, now find themselves contending with threats from the sky.

What does this mean for the future of missions like UNIFIL? For one, rules of engagement must adapt. For another, international diplomacy needs to reckon with how quickly localized incidents can spiral into broader confrontations. A drone that strays too close to a patrol or a grenade dropped in a field can spark a chain reaction that ignites broader conflict.

Questions for reflection

Are international peacekeeping frameworks keeping pace with the technological changes of modern conflict?

How much responsibility should regional powers bear in preventing their security concerns from endangering bystanders and multilateral forces?

And finally, what are the moral and political costs of keeping peacekeepers in harm’s way without clearer protections and firmer political commitments?

On the ground, a fragile hope

For now, life in southern Lebanon carries on under a fragile veil. Tea is poured, groceries are bagged, children go to school. Yet every now and then a hum in the sky or the distant rumble of a tank reminds people that peace here is not a steady achievement but a daily act of will.

“We want to live — like everyone else,” said a teacher in Bint Jbeil, voice low. “Not as headlines, not as chess pieces. Just to be able to teach our children without counting the drones overhead.”

That simple wish — safety for ordinary life — is, in many ways, what UNIFIL and actors on all sides say they are trying to protect. The challenge is to ensure that in protecting those ideals, the very people tasked with safeguarding them are not the ones who pay the price.

US Navy Helicopter and Fighter Jet Plunge into South China Sea

hanad

October 27, 2025

US Navy helicopter, jet crash into South China Sea — Both aircraft crashed during routine operations from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (file photo)

Two Crashes, One Carrier: A Quiet Hour in the South China Sea Turns Unnerving

The sky over the South China Sea is often described as a blue stage for geopolitical theater — container ships carving invisible routes, fishing boats drifting like punctuation marks, and above it all, the erratic choreography of military aircraft. Yesterday, that choreography faltered.

Within the space of an hour, a US Navy Sea Hawk helicopter and an F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jet crashed into the sea while conducting routine operations from the same aircraft carrier. The carrier was not publicly identified by the Navy, but the incidents were tied to the carrier group that launched them. In terse, public-facing messages, officials sought to reassure: everyone on board was accounted for and in stable condition, and inquiries were underway into what went wrong.

A tense hour, measured in minutes

Imagine deck crews moving with the practiced precision of a machine, catapults and arresting wires humming, lights blinking like a city’s heartbeat. Flight operations aboard a U.S. carrier are a study in precision under pressure — dozens of takeoffs and landings can occur in a single day. Then, two separate aircraft plunge into the ocean within an hour. It’s not just a technical problem; it’s a human one.

“We heard the call over the deck net: ‘Mayday, Mayday,'” said a sailor who asked to remain anonymous. “Your stomach drops. Everything pauses. Then the training kicks in — life rafts, medics, search teams. There’s no room for panic, only action.”

The US Pacific Fleet posted on the platform X that “All personnel involved are safe and in stable condition,” adding that the cause of both incidents was under investigation. President Donald Trump, traveling in Asia at the time, told reporters aboard Air Force One that the crashes were unusual and speculated — without citing evidence — that “bad fuel” could be to blame. “What caused them will likely soon be known,” he said.

An unexpected offer from Beijing

In a development that underscored the unpredictability of great-power relations, China’s foreign ministry offered humanitarian assistance following the crashes. Spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters that Beijing stood ready to lend help in rescue and recovery if asked.

The offer — striking in its directness given longstanding tensions in these waters — prompted a quick exchange of statements across diplomatic channels. “Humanitarian gestures are not just about helping a handful of people,” reflected Dr. Li Hua, a Beijing-based scholar of maritime affairs. “They are also opportunities to remind the world that cooperation can coexist with competition.”

Voices from the deck and the waves

There are faces, not just facts, at the center of this story. The pilot of the Super Hornet survived, as did the crew of the Sea Hawk. Relief among family members and shipmates was palpable, even amid the bewilderment about why two aircraft operating from the same carrier would end up in the same stretch of ocean within an hour.

“My nephew called, voice shaking,” said Maria Torres, who lives near a naval base where some families of sailors gather when their loved ones deploy. “You pray and you wait for facts. You want answers. You want them safe.”

Naval aviation veterans told me that crashes are rare but never unthinkable — the product of high-tempo operations, harsh marine weather, and split-second mechanical realities. “There are a thousand reasons something could go wrong,” said retired Commander Samuel Reed, now a maritime safety consultant. “From bird strikes to engine anomalies to simple human error. That’s why investigations are painstaking: they peel away assumptions and follow evidence.”

What investigators will watch for

In the coming days and weeks, investigators will examine flight data recorders, maintenance logs, fuel samples, and the human factors that govern split-second decisions. They’ll interview pilots, deck crew, and maintenance personnel. They’ll analyze weather and sea conditions. And they’ll run simulations to reconstruct the final moments of each aircraft’s flight.

“We look for patterns,” said an aviation safety investigator who asked not to be identified because the probe is active. “Two crashes near each other could be coincidental, or they could point to a systemic problem: maintenance procedures, spare parts, even training gaps.”

Why this matters beyond the carriers

On the surface, this is a military mishap story. Peel back one layer, and it ties into bigger currents: how the United States projects power across contested seas; how rapid deployments during diplomatic missions carry operational risk; and how even seemingly routine incidents can complicate fragile diplomatic moments.

President Trump is on an Asia visit that includes engagements in Tokyo and an upcoming summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Any disturbance involving U.S. military assets in a geopolitically sensitive area like the South China Sea adds a new variable to those talks. Military-to-military channels, already strained by broader mistrust, often become vital for deconfliction and rescue coordination.

“Safety at sea is a shared interest,” said Linh Pham, a maritime security analyst based in Southeast Asia. “Whether it’s a rescue or a carrier deck mishap, there’s room to build narrow cooperation—if both sides choose it.”

Local color and human texture

The South China Sea is a mosaic of small fishing craft, oil rigs, and distant islands — a living seascape threaded with human stories. Fishermen who ply these waters are used to the flash of aircraft overhead. “When a plane goes down, you see it first with your eyes,” said an older fisherman who spends months at sea. “We help if we can. We carry blankets, food, radios. The sea takes, but people try to give back.”

On shore, families gathered in living rooms and at naval base gates, phones pressed to ears searching for updates. The combination of technology and anxiety — live-streamed briefings, terse official statements, an anxious wait for concrete answers — made the hours feel longer.

Questions we’re left with

What does this mean for the broader choreography of U.S.-China relations in the region? Will this incident prompt renewed safety protocols for carrier operations? How do we balance the demands of high-tempo military readiness with the human need for safety?

These are not merely technical queries. They touch on values: how nations treat the people who stand on the forward edge of policy; how rivalry can coexist with humanitarian gestures; and how transparency can build—or erode—trust.

“Accidents remind us of our fragility,” said Commander Reed. “They also remind us why systems of care — search and rescue, cross-border offers of help, rigorous investigations — matter in the first place.”

Looking forward

Investigators will do their work. Families will wait for full answers. Policymakers will weigh the diplomatic fallout alongside routine defense planning. For the rest of us, the incident is a small, sharp story about risk and resilience on a global stage: about lives tethered to mechanical wings, about crews that train to move as one, and about a sea that can swallow mistakes — or demand cooperation to right them.

What would you want to know if someone you loved was on that carrier? How should nations balance the spectacle of power with the deep responsibility of keeping people alive? The South China Sea offered no simple answers yesterday, only the urgent reminder that behind every headline there are human faces and hands doing the impossible work of staying afloat.

Please leave a comment below — stories like this gain depth when we hear the voices of people who live closest to the sea and to the machines that fly above it.

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