The conflict between Iran and Israel has become one of the most discussed geopolitical events on social media in 2026. But who is actually driving that conversation on X?
We used LunarCrush to track engagement across 22 war-related topics, scanning thousands of creators to rank the top 50 by total engagement in 2026. The results reveal a mix of citizen journalists, geopolitical analysts, official government accounts, and financial commentators.
The Scale of the Conversation
The numbers are staggering. Across 22 war-related topics -- from "Iran" and "Israel" to "Strait of Hormuz" and "Airstrikes" -- the top 50 creators alone generated 607.9 million engagements in Q1 2026.
Engagement peaked on February 28, coinciding with escalations around the Strait of Hormuz and renewed nuclear deal negotiations.
The Top 25 Creators
@MarioNawfal: The Undisputed Leader
MarioNawfal's dominance is remarkable. With 161.4 million engagements across 19 of the 22 tracked topics, he generated more war-related engagement than the next five creators combined.
For context, the #2 creator -- Israel's official PM account @netanyahu -- generated 28.5M engagements but only across 2 topics. MarioNawfal's breadth of coverage is what separates him from the field.
What About Elon?
Elon Musk appeared in our initial scan with 27.9M in war-topic engagement. We excluded him because that represents just 0.04% of his total 2026 output. His war-topic hits are keyword overlap from general commentary, not dedicated conflict coverage.
The 22 Topics Tracked
Iran, Israel, War, IDF, Hamas, Hezbollah, Gaza, Tehran, Netanyahu, Strait of Hormuz, Ceasefire, Sanctions, Missiles, Nuclear, Houthis, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, West Bank, Airstrikes, Military
The weekly heatmap in the full dashboard reveals clear patterns:
"Iran" and "Israel" consistently dominate week over week
"Strait of Hormuz" and "Nuclear" show sharp spikes tied to specific escalation events
"Ceasefire" engagement surges and falls with diplomatic cycles
"Houthis" and "Yemen" engagement rose sharply in late February as Red Sea tensions escalated
The New Information Ecosystem
What's most striking is who isn't on the list. Legacy media accounts like CNN, BBC, and NYT are absent from the top 50. The conversation is driven by:
Citizen journalists -- @RyanRozbiani, @rebelliousdogra, @clashreport
OSINT accounts -- @Osint613, @MOSSADil, @sentdefender
Geopolitical commentators -- @jacksonhinklle, @ShaykhSulaiman, @A_K_Mandhan
Financial analysts -- @KobeissiLetter, @TheMoneyApe, @Polymarket
Government/institutional -- @netanyahu, @RT_com, @AJEnglish
Topic Coverage Depth
The number of topics a creator covers reveals their focus:
@Osint613 covers 17 of 22 topics -- the broadest intelligence coverage
@MOSSADil covers 16 topics -- deep Israeli intelligence perspective
@jacksonhinklle covers 15 topics -- geopolitical commentary across the full spectrum
@netanyahu covers just 2 topics -- focused but massive engagement per topic
Methodology
Data sourced from LunarCrush, which processes over 30 million posts per hour across X, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, and 10,000+ news sources. We identified 22 war-related topics, pulled the top creators for each, deduplicated across X/Twitter, and summed engagement across all war topics. Time series covers January 1 - April 12, 2026. Creators with war-topic engagement below 0.1% of their total output were excluded.
Explore the Full Interactive Dashboard
Sortable rankings, weekly engagement heatmaps, and individual creator profiles:
Data powered by LunarCrush. Analysis by Joe Vezzani.