Lebanon detains and deports US-Israeli national

Lebanese authorities detained a U.S.-Israeli national in Beirut last week and later deported him, Lebanese security and judicial sources said on Thursday.

"Joshua Samuel, a U.S.-Israeli journalist, was detained on Oct. 5 and deported the following day," a judicial official said, requesting to remain anonymous.

Israel intensified air strikes in Lebanon over two weeks ago, targeting the Hezbollah armed group.

Lebanese law prohibits any contact with Israel, punishable by imprisonment, and Lebanese citizens are barred from traveling to its southern neighbor.

A security official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Hezbollah members detained a man called "Joshua Samuel Tartakovsky with U.S. and Israeli passports" and handed him over to the military intelligence, but said he was not a journalist.

He had gone to the southern suburbs, where Israel has pounded what they say are Hezbollah sites in recent weeks, presenting himself as a "supporter of Gaza and Hezbollah," the security source said.

He claimed he wanted to tell Hezbollah about "Israeli army tactics," the source said.

A spokesperson at the U.S. embassy told AFP: "We are aware of the arrest and due to privacy reasons have no further information to provide."

The escalation of Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Sept. 23 has killed more than 1,200 people and displaced over a million more from their homes, according to official figures.

Before that, Hezbollah had traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.